Leadership dispute: Lokomotiv and CSKA will compete for the first place in the RPL

The Moscow derby between the two leaders of the Russian Football Championship, Lokomotiv and CSKA, will be the central match of the upcoming 12th round of the Russian Premier League. The army men go first, and they need to avoid defeat from the "railwaymen" in order not to let them go ahead. However, other pursuers like Krasnodar are ready to take advantage of any misfire from one of the capital's teams.

In addition, two more meetings in Moscow stand out in the next round. Spartak will host Rostov, and Dynamo will face Akhmat Grozny.

Lokomotiv – CSKA

The next round will be the first after a two-week break for the national team games. Many Lokomotiv and CSKA players played for Russia in the last matches against Iran (2-1) and Bolivia (3-0). From the "railwaymen" there were defender Alexander Silyanov, midfielders Alexey Batrakov, Dmitry Barinov and Zelimkhan Bakaev, striker Dmitry Vorobyov, from the army defenders Igor Diveev, Matvey Lukin and Danil Krugovoy, midfielders Matvey Kislyak and Ivan Oblyakov.

CSKA is only one point ahead of Lokomotiv in the standings. Next to the red and green is the reigning champion Krasnodar, who will be ready to regain the lead if the Moscow derby ends in a draw.

"We will try and fight as hard as in previous matches, and we are aiming to win,— Lokomotiv defender Alexander Silyanov told Izvestia. — The main strengths of CSKA? Their center is Kislyak and Oblyakov in midfield and Diveev in defense. Due to them, the team is now in the lead in many ways. But we are preparing for the game and we believe that we can win.

Spartak – Rostov

During the break for the national team games, both teams had drastic changes in leadership. The day after losing to CSKA (2:3) in the last round, Spartak announced the resignation of CEO Oleg Malyshev. He was replaced by Sergey Nekrasov, a top manager at Gazprombank. And on Thursday, Andrey Movsesyan, who previously worked as a breeder and sports director of CSKA for 12 years, was appointed his deputy in the Russian field of breeding and youth football development.

Francis Cahigao, who has been working as Spartak's sports director since the end of last year, was previously responsible for the entire selection process, but now he will probably focus on the foreign market. At the same time, the head coach of the red and white Dejan Stankovic retains his post, despite the sixth place and six points behind the leader.

Rostov on Thursday announced the resignation of the club's president Artashes Harutyunyanets, who has held this post since June 2017. Along with sports director Alexei Ryskin and head coach Valery Karpin, who left the Don team in February, Harutyunyants was a key creator of all the successes of Rostov's modern history.

Meanwhile, CEO Igor Goncharov, who joined the club in the summer, announced that Artashes Vladimirovich remains on the board of directors of Rostov. He also expressed full confidence in the current head coach, Jonathan Alba, who helped Karpin for many years and replaced him in February.

Rostov started the current season unsuccessfully with the Spaniard, but did not lose in the last six matches and rose from the penultimate 15th place to the tenth. Interestingly, over the past year, the Donskoy club has already defeated Spartak three times. However, it was in the Russian Cup. In September, he defeated the red-whites in the group stage (2:1). And last season, I knocked them out of the Cup in turn, first in the "RPL Paths", and then in the "Paths of the Regions".

— We will do our best to repeat the success of the away cup match — we are going to Spartak for points, — Ilya Vakhania, Rostov defender, told Izvestia. — We have a match against a very serious opponent ahead of us, but we have beaten him more than once, including on someone else's field. So we have a chance to do it again. We will build on our game. If we play the same football as in the last RPL matches, we can be successful.

Dynamo (Moscow) – Akhmat

Akhmat failed to start the championship, losing the first three matches. After that, the club changed its head coach — Stanislav Cherchesov replaced Alexander Storozhuk. Under him, the team rose to ninth place thanks to a seven-match unbeaten streak. It was only in the last round that she was interrupted by the results of an away match with Krasnodar (0:2).

Dynamo Moscow got off to an unsuccessful start under the leadership of Valery Karpin, who was appointed head coach before the start of the season. It was stuck in eighth place, nine points behind the leader. "Akhmat" is on a par with the blue and white on points. And the next match in the capital will show which of these teams will get a chance to get to the top of the table.

The personalities of the head coaches of the teams add a special character to this confrontation — Valery Karpin also holds a similar post in the Russian national team, where he replaced Cherchesov in the summer of 2021, who achieved one of the main successes in its post—Soviet history with the national team – reaching the quarterfinals of the 2018 World Cup. In addition, it was Karpin who, when he was CEO of Spartak, fired Cherchesov from the club as head coach in 2008.

"We are only waiting for a victory over Dynamo in the next match — we can do it,— Akhmed Aidamirov, General Director of Akhmat, told Izvestia. — There is no panic because of the defeat against Krasnodar - we played away from the Russian champion after all. As it is, we are happy with the team, both with its results and the game. We will play to win the next match.

There will also be five more matches in the 12th round. Krasnodar will play away against Dynamo Makhachkala. Zenit St. Petersburg is waiting for a trip to Sochi. Pari Nizhny Novgorod will host Tolyatti Akron. Rubin Kazan will face Baltika Kaliningrad at home. And the Samara Wings of the Soviets will face off against Orenburg in their native walls.