To Zenit for glory: will Dynamo be able to improve the standings

The central match of the upcoming 13th round of the Russian Football Championship will be the confrontation between Zenit St. Petersburg and Dynamo Moscow, which must necessarily win in order to get closer to the leaders. Meanwhile, the capital's Lokomotiv and CSKA Moscow, which are at the top of the table, will hold meetings with representatives of the Samara region. However, the "railwaymen" will go to visit the Tolyatti Akron in Saransk. And the army will host the Wings of the Soviets on their field.

Zenit — Dynamo

Both teams unsuccessfully spent the first third of the championship. But at the same time, Zenit lost only one match in this tournament — back in the summer, it lost away to Akhmat Grozny (0:1). This misfire and several others, like in the October away match with Akron (1-1), led to the fact that the blue-white-Blues are now outside the top three. At the same time, the current fourth place is not a disaster for St. Petersburg, which is only three points behind the leaders Lokomotiv and Krasnodar.

Dynamo is already 10 points behind the first place and is in eighth place. Valery Karpin's team still won't start winning steadily. And their visit to St. Petersburg is fraught with serious personnel losses. Midfielder Daniil Fomin will miss the game due to suspension. Midfielder Anton Miranchuk is out due to injury. Also, the last match in the championship against Akhmat (2-2) was missed by the main goalkeeper Andrey Lunev.

The game with Grozny took place at the end of last week. Alexander Rodionov, Dynamo's doctor, told Sport-Express immediately after that meeting that the 33-year-old goalkeeper would definitely not play next week, which meant he would not be in the Zenit game.

—It won't be easy for Dynamo, given the personnel losses," Sergei Silkin, the former head coach of the blue and white team, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — Without Miranchuk, who tied up the game well in attack in recent matches, it is unclear how Karpin's team will act ahead. And Fomin meant a lot ahead. Of course, there is a good attack in the person of Ivan Sergeev and Konstantin Tyukavin, who can make a goal at any moment. But the question is how often the ball will be delivered to them from the middle line. And I would like this to happen more often, because with the current defensive game, there is no certainty that Dynamo will avoid conceding goals — Zenit, even in its poor condition, will always have the opportunity to score. In general, Peter looks like the favorite of the game, and Dynamo will need to play the best match of the season, jump over their heads to achieve a victory or a draw.

Akron — Locomotive

Lokomotiv has won two Moscow derbies in a row — against Dynamo (5-3) and CSKA (3-0). This allowed the Railwaymen to return to the top spot, which they lost in September after five draws in a row. Mikhail Galaktionov's team is still going undefeated in this championship - no one else in the RPL can boast of this.

Now they will have to travel to Akron, for which one of the strongest and brightest football players in Russia has been playing for the last 15 years — striker Artyom Dzyuba. Before the Tolyatti club, he played for Loko, where he spent a year and a half, leaving it due to a conflict with the management.

The match will not take place at Akron's home stadium, which is playing in Samara at the Solidarity Arena. The meeting was moved to Saransk at the Mordovia Arena, another stadium where the 2018 World Cup matches were held.

— I think we will gather about 8-10 thousand spectators — they missed football in Saransk, and the audience's interest in our match with Lokomotiv is quite high, — Konstantin Klyushev, CEO of Akron, explained to Izvestia. — So I don't think we will lose in terms of attendance due to the postponement of the match from Samara. We'll probably even make money. The game had to be moved to Saransk due to the fact that Samara is preparing to host the Russia — Sports Power forum, the events of which should also take place at our home stadium. When the RPL season calendar was being compiled in the summer, the exact dates of the forum were not yet fully known, plus two teams are playing at the Solidarity Arena stadium — Krylia Sovetov and us.

Akron is having a very difficult season. Having won in the second round in the summer against the outsider of the RPL Sochi (4:0), Tolyatti did not win the championship for nine matches in a row. In September, they had four defeats in a row.

Back in late August, Artyom Dzyuba sounded the alarm, calling on the club's management to strengthen the squad and help head coach Zaur Tedeev. As a result, several newcomers joined Akron at the very flag of the transfer window. The team began to show signs of life before the October break for the national team games, when it managed to draw at home with Zenit (1-1), and there could have been a victory if Dzyuba had taken a penalty in the last minutes.

And last weekend, Akron won its first match since the summer. They managed to defeat their rival in the fight for survival, Pari Nizhny Novgorod (1-0). This allowed us to get out of the transition zone, which has a one-point gap, and increase the gap from the relegation zone to five points.

— We are well aware that we are developing as a team — both me and the head coach are constantly talking about this, and the rest will show the result on the field, — Konstantin Klyushev added. — We are preparing to go out and win the match against Lokomotiv. Yes, this team has not lost in the current championship yet, but we believe in ourselves. We can see from the recent matches that our team is getting stronger and moving up, so we hope for success in the next round.

CSKA Moscow — Krylia Sovetov

After losing the derby to Loko, CSKA lost the lead and fell to third place, but they are only two points behind the first. Back in early October, during the confrontation with Spartak Moscow (3-2), the Army team lost the main goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev, who did not play against the Railwaymen either. Perhaps he will return for Saturday's home match with Krylia Sovetov.

The Samara club successfully started the championship, but this autumn is still going hard for the Volga region. The team scored only one point in the last four rounds. The home draw in the last match with Orenburg (1-1) interrupted a series of three defeats in a row. Due to these failures, Krylia dropped to 11th place with a margin of only three points from the transition zone.

"We will do everything to successfully play against CSKA and improve our tournament position," said Krylia Sovetov forward Adolfo Gaich, who is on loan from the Army. — We will be playing against a very strong opponent, who deservedly is at the top of the table. But I think we have a good enough team to be successful in the next meeting.

There will also be five more matches in the upcoming 13th round. Spartak Moscow will host Orenburg on its field. Rostov will face Dynamo Makhachkala at home. Pari Nizhny Novgorod will play against Baltika Kaliningrad at home. Krasnodar is waiting for Rubin Kazan to visit. Akhmat Grozny will have a home match with Sochi.