To beat in St. Petersburg: how Valera left Karpin without a victory

The players of the Russian national team missed the victory in a friendly match with the national team of Peru. Valery Karpin's team drew 1-0 at home.:1. The meeting was held in St. Petersburg at the Gazprom Arena. It was attended by more than 45 thousand viewers.

Before the match

Our team arrived in St. Petersburg on Monday evening, and on Tuesday morning visited the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, where players, coaches and staff laid flowers and honored the memory of defenders of besieged Leningrad and civilians who died in the Great Patriotic War. The head coach of the Russian national team, Valery Karpin, and its captain, Alexander Golovin, left notes in the book of reviews.

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Together with them, the RFU ambassadors were present at the event — Denis Glushakov, a former midfielder of the national team, and Ari, an ex-striker of Spartak and Lokomotiv Moscow, as well as Krasnodar, now the sports director of Torpedo in the capital. By the way, the captain's armband Golovin wore to the match against Peru had an image dedicated to the hero city of Leningrad.

On the day of the game, there were loud rumors around Valery Karpin that he might lose his post as head coach of Dynamo Moscow. As reported by Sport-Express, this may happen already during the current break for the national team matches. In this case, he will find out about his resignation almost immediately upon returning from the location of the national team. It is claimed that the Dynamo leadership is unhappy with the disastrous results — 10th place after the first round and three points from the transition zone - as well as statements that the national team is in first place for him.

A draw game

In the starting lineup, our team's main goalkeeper, Matvey Safonov from the French PSG, turned out to be in the goal. In defense, in addition to Yuri Gorshkov from Zenit St. Petersburg, Karpin fielded people he knows well — Ilya Vakhania and Viktor Melekhin, who worked with him until February this year at Rostov, as well as Maxim Osipenko, who joined Dynamo last summer after the head coach.

Nail Umyarov from Spartak Moscow, Danil Prutsev and Alexey Batrakov from Lokomotiv Moscow, Alexander Golovin from Monaco and Alexey Miranchuk from the American Atlanta United came out in the middle line. Dynamo's Ivan Sergeev turned out to be the only striker on the field.

The national team of Peru did not come to St. Petersburg with the most basic team, but they resisted our team. She didn't create much in the attack, but she didn't let us turn around at her own goal either. Everything would have been very bad for us, but in the 18th minute a mistake by the goalkeeper of the guests, Pedro Gallese, helped, and two Russian legionnaires organized a goal.

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After a pass back from his defender, the Peruvian goalkeeper made a technical mistake, releasing the ball far away, which Miranchuk picked up and passed to Golovin, who did not miss from two meters at an empty goal. There were almost no more dangerous moments before the break — I only remember Miranchuk's shot from the penalty area above the goal.

During the break, Karpin released Mingiyan Beveyev instead of Vakhania — this was the third match in a row for the defender of Kaliningrad Baltic. In October, he played in the last minutes of the match against Iran (2-1) and played the entire first half in the match against Bolivia (3-0).

After the break, the game was also not full of chances. It was only in the 65th minute that Sergeyev scored with a powerful shot on goal. Soon, three more substitutions took place in the Russian national team. Sergeev gave way to his Dynamo teammate Konstantin Tyukavin in the attack. Danil Krugovoy from CSKA replaced Gorshkov in defense, and Alexander Chernikov from Krasnodar entered the defensive zone instead of Umyarov. Golovin left the field in the 75th minute and was replaced by Lechi Sadulaev from Akhmat Grozny.

By this point, the Peruvians had also used up all their replacements. And it brought them success. Alex Valera leveled the score with a shot from outside the penalty area in the 82nd minute.

The Russian national team extended its unbeaten streak to 23 matches. She has never lost since February 2022, when she was suspended from official tournaments. The last defeat happened in November 2021, when Karpin's team lost away to Croatia (0:1) in the last round of the group stage of the 2022 World Cup qualifying tournament.

Our national team has only one friendly match left this year. It will take place on Saturday, November 15 in Sochi at the Fisht Stadium. The opponent will be Chile. After that, the team will meet in March 2026.