Substitution culture: the successes of Spartak and Dynamo without Stankovich and Karpin

Spartak Moscow and Dynamo Moscow won their first matches at home after the dismissals of the head coaches in the last 16th round of the Russian Football Championship. The red and white scored a minimal victory in the Moscow derby over CSKA (1-0), and the blue and white prevailed over Dynamo Makhachkala (3-0). Krasnodar retained the lead after an away draw with Moscow Lokomotiv (1:1).

Spartak – CSKA

11 days before this derby, Spartak fired head coach Deyan Stankovich, who had worked with the team for a year and a half. He was replaced as acting director by Vadim Romanov, who will remain in this position until the winter break. He worked at Stankovich's headquarters, and before that he headed the red and white youth team for two years.

One of his main personnel decisions was the entry into the starting lineup against CSKA of midfielder Roman Zobnin, the long—time captain of the team, who is spending his tenth season at Spartak, in recent months, under Stankovich, he did not go to the base.

Igor Akinfeev, the team's long-time captain and main goalkeeper, has also returned to the CSKA team, having not played on the field since early October, when he was injured during the previous 3-2 derby with Spartak.

Moving away from Stankovich: how Spartak will play after the coach's dismissal

The red and white are preparing for the derby with CSKA, Lokomotiv will take on the leader, Dynamo will play a match without Karpin for the first time.

Saturday's match was played with a minimum of scoring chances and not the brightest game on both sides. But it was felt that the red and white looked more confident and made fewer mistakes at their own goal. Their head coach was calmer on the sidelines than his predecessor. CSKA's problems began in the 10th minute, when their left-back, one of the team leaders Danil Krugovoy, was injured, and he urgently had to be replaced by Matija Popovich.

At the end of the first half, Spartak opened the scoring when Ezequiel Barco tipped the ball into the goalkeeper's box from the corner, and Igor Dmitriev stealthily sent the ball into Akinfeev's goal. After the break, the red and white confidently defended their goal and brought the game to victory. CSKA missed the opportunity to become the leaders of the tournament, and Spartak are six points behind the first place.

"We did a great job and deserved to win," Spartak defender Daniil Denisov shared his opinion with Izvestia. — We knew how the opponent was playing, we prepared for him, we blocked all the zones and almost did not allow CSKA to create anything. Stankovich's dismissal? I only want to talk about the last game. I would like to mention Romanov — he does a lot of work, helps us, prompts us. We have a very good atmosphere in our team. And this is important if we want to continue winning.

Lokomotiv – Krasnodar

During the recent November break for the national team games, there were personnel changes at Lokomotiv. But they didn't touch the coaching staff, but the management.

Vladimir Leonchenko left the post of CEO, having worked in this position for almost five years. He was replaced by Boris Rotenberg Jr., a former football player for Lokomotiv, Rostov and Dynamo Moscow. Since January 2024, he has worked as Deputy General Director of Loko and oversaw the youth football academy, youth team and Youth Football League teams.

His first match at the head of the club was immediately against the leader and the reigning champion. The Railwaymen could not count on their captain Dmitry Barinov, who was disqualified due to too many yellow cards.

His absence in the defensive zone was compensated for by the confident play of Artyom Karpukas and Danil Prutsev. And the captain's functions were well performed by the star young midfielder Alexey Batrakov.

Prutsev was especially noted in the 11th minute, when Alexander Rudenko opened the scoring with his pass. But four minutes later, Douglas Augusto equalized. There were no more goals in this match, although in the second half the teams had good chances to snatch victory. Krasnodar was especially close to success, but Cesar Montes was able to pull the ball out of an empty net with his head.

Krasnodar retains the lead in the championship, one point ahead of CSKA and Zenit. Loko is still fourth and three points behind the first place.

"It turned out to be a very good match, much better than the Spartak and CSKA derbies," Nikolai Naumov, former president of Lokomotiv, said in a conversation with Izvestia. — Both teams showed high speeds, played almost without the center of the field, did not engage in a long swing in the middle, quickly went from defense to attack. Both Lokomotiv and Krasnodar may be unhappy with the draw, but it's in the game. None of the teams deserved to lose.

Dynamo (Moscow) – Dynamo (Makhachkala)

Six days before the match with Makhachkala, Valery Karpin announced his resignation from the post of head coach of Dynamo Moscow. He referred to the need to focus on working in a similar position in the Russian national team. But few doubt that this decision was influenced by the disastrous results of his club.

According to the results of the first round of the Russian championship, the blue and white took 10th place, although when Karpin was appointed, it was a question of fighting for the championship. In the summer, the club's most expensive transfer campaign in six years was conducted under the now former head coach. Football players familiar to Valery Georgievich from his work in the national team and Rostov were acquired.

But in the end, in 15 rounds of the championship, there were only four victories over rivals from the bottom of the table. And in the last five rounds there were only draws and defeats. As a result, Dynamo were only three points away from the zone of transitional matches of the Makhachkala Dynamo.

A defeat from the latter would threaten to fall into this zone and a real risk of relegation from the RPL. In place of Karpin, Rolan Gusev was appointed acting head coach, who already performed these functions in the spring at the end of the last championship during the last four rounds after the dismissal of the previous coach of the team Marcel Lichka. Then he managed to win three matches.

Since the summer of 2023, Gusev has also assisted Lichka and Karpin. Shortly before the game against Makhachkala, Dynamo's press service posted a video of a meeting with the club's management team. At the meeting, Sergei Stepashin, a member of the board of directors, said that Gusev would remain the head coach on a permanent basis if he won the remaining four matches before the winter break.

Once again, as in the spring after Lichka's resignation, Gusev managed to liberate the team, which successfully played against the extremely unyielding Makhachkala. It cannot be said that the Muscovites had the advantage in the game, but their attack realized its moments. Konstantin Tyukavin opened the scoring in the middle of the first half, and Ivan Sergeev consolidated the success at the beginning of the second half. The winning point at the end of the meeting was set by El-Mehdi Mauhub.

Two in one: Degtyarev was offered to introduce a limit on foreign coaches

This idea was suggested by the former mentors of the Russian national team — Gazzaev, Semin and Cherchesov.

Dynamo Moscow moved up to ninth place. To be approved by the head coach, Rolan Gusev has three matches left to win — the home return quarterfinal of the "RPL Way" of the Russian Cup against Zenit St. Petersburg (Dynamo won the first game 3-1), the away game in the championship against Akhmat Grozny and the away Moscow derby of the championship against Spartak.

"I don't think we played a very bad match, but we need to score goals and realize our chances," Nikita Glushkov, midfielder of Dynamo Makhachkala, told Izvestia. — We had the opportunity to score the opponent's goal, but with such an implementation as we had in this match, it was difficult to expect a victory away from an opponent of such a level as Dynamo Moscow. They realized their chances and it was precisely due to this attitude to their scoring opportunities that they defeated us.

There were also five more matches in the last round. Tolyatti Akron scored a strong-willed victory over Sochi (3:2) at home, losing 0:2 by the middle of the second half. Orenburg drew with Kaliningrad Baltika (0:0) on its own field. Samara "Wings of the Soviets" prevailed in their native walls over Rostov (2:0). Zenit St. Petersburg scored an away win over Pari Nizhny Novgorod (2:0).