Departure of the Locomotive: will the "railwaymen" be able to win in St. Petersburg

The Russian Football Championship is coming to its midpoint — next weekend we will have the penultimate 14th round of the tournament in the first round. By this stage, there is still a sharp intrigue at the top of the standings — the first and fourth teams are one victory away from each other (three points). Two of the four clubs, Zenit and Lokomotiv, will play each other next Saturday. And the next day, Krasnodar, which is leading in the championship, will host Spartak Moscow, which needs a victory to keep its chances of joining the championship race. In addition, it is worth highlighting the meeting of Rubin Kazan and Dynamo Moscow.

Zenit — Lokomotiv

Lokomotiv is still going undefeated in the current championship, but with a lot of draws. In the summer and early autumn, the Railwaymen offensively missed victories in the last minutes — at home with Rostov (3:3) and Samara Wings of the Soviets (2:2), as well as away with Dynamo Makhachkala (1:1).

At the end of last week, there was an away draw with Tolyatti Akron (1-1), when Loko also had reason to expect victory, but could not achieve it for another reason — a huge number of unrealized scoring chances. Now he is two points behind Krasnodar and just one ahead of Zenit.

The St. Petersburg club lost in the championship only once. But at the same time, with a summer away defeat from Akhmat Grozny (0:1), the blue-white-Blues had three more draws in the first five rounds. Due to so many misfires, Zenit was in the middle of the table then, but in the fall it gained momentum and now it has risen to fourth place, lagging only three points behind Krasnodar.

Due to injuries, Sergei Semak's team will not be able to use defenders Douglas Santos and Arsen Adamov, as well as striker Matteo Cassierra. The absence of the latter is especially painful, since Zenit can only rely on Luciano Gonda and Pedro at the forefront of the attack, and Semak described Alexander Sobolev after the previous match with Dynamo Moscow (2-1) as "not the second or third striker of the team." As for Zenit captain Douglas Santos, he dropped out before the winter break in the season.

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Loko lost the main central defender Cesar Montes, who was disqualified due to too many yellow cards. In addition, team leaders Dmitry Barinov and Alexey Batrakov are under threat of disqualification. If they receive yellow cards in St. Petersburg, they will miss the next home game against Orenburg.

"Lokomotiv is a strong team, it has a lot of high—quality performers, but at the same time it is a strong team," Zenit midfielder Alexander Erokhin shared his opinion with Izvestia. — So, as for the match against Dynamo, we will prepare for the game against Lokomotiv with the same thoughts that we need to show all our will, character, and fight for every ball. Support each other and try to win.

Krasnodar — Spartak

The current national champion Krasnodar is also in the lead in the current national championship draw. After a successful summer start in September, the Bulls had a slump when they won only one match out of four. But he hasn't lost any points in October yet — he's now on a three-win streak in a row.

Spartak is still struggling to score points. Almost all the victories in this championship were won by him over the teams from the bottom of the standings. Moreover, in most cases with a big creak, as, for example, in the last round with Orenburg, which was beaten in Moscow with a minimum score (1:0) in a game of extremely poor quality.

With more or less organized teams, as a rule, the red and white lose points. As a result, with huge spending on transfers, they are in sixth place, seven points behind Krasnodar. Nevertheless, despite rumors of retirement, head coach Dejan Stankovic retains his post. Perhaps his fate will be influenced by the game with Krasnodar.

Meanwhile, back in the first half of October, changes took place in the leadership of Spartak — the CEO was replaced (Sergey Nekrasov replaced Oleg Malyshev), and Andrey Movsesyan, the former sports director of CSKA, was appointed his deputy in the Russian field of selection and development of youth football.

"We are preparing for a good, difficult game against Krasnodar, which we expect to win," Spartak midfielder Daniil Denisov told Izvestia. — We have good memories from our last trip there, when we won 4-1 last season. We will prepare for a match against a good opponent and, hopefully, we will have a great match.

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Rubin — Dynamo

According to the level of the composition, both teams could well qualify to join the fight for medals. But so far they are stuck in the middle of the table. Like Spartak, they are, in particular, below Kaliningrad Baltika, which played in the first league last season.

Rubin and Dynamo missed a number of leading players due to injuries. The loss of defender Egor Teslenko is especially significant for the Kazan team. And for the blue and white team, the absence of midfielder Anton Miranchuk is extremely painful. The club from the capital of Tatarstan is in seventh place, 11 points from the first. Dynamo are two points behind their upcoming opponent.

There will also be five more matches in the next round. CSKA will host Pari Nizhny Novgorod. Baltika will meet Akhmat Grozny at home. Dynamo Makhachkala will face the Samara Wings of the Soviets at home. Tolyatti Akron is waiting for Rostov to visit. Orenburg will play Sochi at home.