Spartak conditions: red and white passed Loko in the Cup

In the Russian Football Cup, the winners in most of the quarterfinal pairs were determined. On Wednesday, following the results of the Moscow derby, Spartak knocked out Lokomotiv from the RPL Path, and CSKA Moscow barely passed Dynamo Makhachkala. Some of the winners of the first stage of the quarterfinals were also determined in the "Path of the Regions". Two more matches at these stages will be played on Thursday.

"The RPL Way"

In this Russian Cup bracket, 16 RPL teams started the tournament with a group stage with four groups of four participants each. Those who took the first two places advanced to the quarterfinals of the "RPL Path". The third-place clubs advanced to the first stage of the Path of the Regions quarterfinals. The fourth places were finally eliminated from the competition.

In the "RPL Path" playoffs, all confrontations take place in two matches. The winner goes on, the loser goes to the second stage of the "Path of the Regions". One of the two central confrontations of the quarterfinals of the "RPL Way" (the first stage of the playoffs) was the Moscow derby of Spartak and Lokomotiv.

Spartak won the first match on their own field with a score of 3:1. Accordingly, in the return game, Loko had to win by at least two goals in order to turn the confrontation into a penalty shootout. Both teams fielded almost all the main squads. Only the goalkeeping positions had people who were considered reserves in the Russian championship, Ilya Lantratov at Lokomotiv and Ilya Pomazun at Spartak.

In the first half, Lokomotiv had a reason to count on a comeback in the confrontation, when Alexey Batrakov opened the scoring with a free kick. But before the break, Spartak equalized: this time Ezequiel Barco hit the ball perfectly from the free kick, Lantratov hit the ball into the post, from where it bounced right onto Ugalde, who hit the home team's goal. And in the first 15 minutes of the second half, the red and white led 3-1 thanks to goals from Marquinhos and Pablo Solari, finally killing the intrigue in this confrontation.

Dynamo Makhachkala won the first match at home against CSKA with a score of 1:0. And it was close to reaching the semifinals following the results of the second leg. Both teams came out as main teams. Only the Dagestani club chose to replace Timur Magomedov in goal with David Volk, although a year ago it was the latter who was the main one for the team in the championship.

Already at the beginning of the game, the visitors opened the scoring thanks to a goal by Andreas Alarcon. This put CSKA in a position where it needed to score two goals to at least reach the penalty shootout. Given Makhachkala's ability to play defensively, they found themselves in an ideal situation.

Dynamo held a comfortable advantage for a very long time, but Matija Popovic equalized in the 68th minute. And at the end of regular time, he scored the second goal and turned the match into a penalty shootout. There, the Makhachkala team immediately failed to send the ball into the goal: the goalkeeper of the hosts, Igor Akinfeev, beat off Abdulpasha Dzhabrailov's shot. Otherwise, both teams hit without misfires, although the Wolf was able to get the ball after Matvey Kislyak's shot, but it inexplicably flew to the far post of the goal and ricocheted into the goal.

"Unfortunately, we couldn't keep the advantage, although we generally played well for most of the match,— Dynamo Makhachkala goalkeeper said in a conversation with Izvestia. — CSKA pressed us well and eventually put the squeeze on us at the end of regular time, and penalty shootouts are already a lottery. It's a shame to miss the chance to go further, but we played well in both matches, almost in no way inferior to such a strong opponent as the Army. These games will make us stronger, which should help both in the Russian championship and in the "Path of the Regions" of the Russian Cup.

CSKA is advancing to the semifinals of the RPL Road, where they will face Krasnodar, who defeated Orenburg 4-0 at home on Wednesday after a confident away victory in the first match (3-1).

Another return quarterfinal of the "RPL Path" will be held on the evening of November 27. In it, Dynamo Moscow will host Zenit St. Petersburg. Dynamo won the first match away. If they keep this advantage, they will get to Spartak in the semifinals.

"The Path of the Regions"

Teams from the lower leagues — the first, second, amateur and media leagues - play in this Russian Cup bracket. From the first stage of the quarterfinals, they are joined by RPL representatives who took third place in the group stage. In the current draw, by this time, apart from them, only representatives of the first league remained in this bracket.

In the "Path of the Regions" in each round, the winner is determined based on the results of one match. The first two meetings of this stage were held on Tuesday. Torpedo Moscow, which is in the relegation zone of the first league, hosted the main sensation of the RPL this season, Baltika Kaliningrad, which unexpectedly found itself in fifth place with one defeat after 16 rounds. This time, Andrey Talalaev's team confidently beat Avtozavodtsy and now they will meet in the second stage of the quarterfinals with the loser in a pair of Dynamo Moscow and Zenit.

"Our team played a good game and deserved a victory," Ravil Izmailov, Baltika's CEO, told Izvestia. — We will try to go as far as possible and repeat our success the season before last, when we reached the Superfinal (in 2024, Baltika lost 1-2 to Zenit in the decisive match. — Izvestia). Our goal in the tournament is to win every match. And then time and the game will show how far we will go.

So far, the main sensation of this week has taken place in another Tuesday match of the Path of the Regions. Arsenal Tula, the average player of the first league, knocked Rubin Kazan, which is in the first half of the RPL table, out of the competition. The club from the capital of Tatarstan came out as a non-core team, which the "gunsmiths" took advantage of.

They managed to hold a goalless draw in regular time. In the penalty shootout, Artur Nigmatullin, who replaced Evgeny Stavera in goal this time, did everything to bring Rubin victory. He deflected Arsenal's first shot, beating Kirill Bolshakov.

Then Kazan scored twice, and Tula scored once and missed once. But Rubin's third shot also turned out to be inaccurate: Nikita Vasiliev missed. It was the beginning of the end for the guests. Daniil Penchikov converted Arsenal's fourth shot, and his team's goalkeeper, Alexander Melikhov, deflected Anderson Arroyo's shot. The last fifth of the main penalties of the hosts turned out to be successful for Resiuan Mirzov. And after Daler Kuzyaev's shot, the ball was caught by Melikhov, which allowed Arsenal to knock Rubin out of the tournament.

In the second stage of the Path of the Regions, Tula will play with Lokomotiv. On Wednesday evening, the strong middleweight of the first league Nizhnekamsk Neftekhtmic hosted Rostov, which is in the top ten of the RPL. The victory was won by the Don club, which will now face Dynamo Makhachkala in the next stage.

On Thursday, KAMAZ from Naberezhnye Chelny will also host Samara Krylia Sovetov in this grid. The winner will face Orenburg.