They released a pair: Krasnodar and Zenit broke away from competitors in the RPL

The leaders of the Russian Premier League this spring, Krasnodar and Zenit St. Petersburg, broke away from their closest pursuers following the results of the 21st round of the Russian Football Championship. The club from the Northern Capital won a fundamental confrontation at home with Spartak Moscow (2:0), and Krasnodar snatched a 2-1 away victory from Sochi in the last minutes. Other contenders for medals — the capital's Lokomotiv and CSKA Moscow — lost their matches away. The Railwaymen lost to Rubin Kazan (0:3), and the army team lost to Baltika Kaliningrad (0:1).

Zenit – Spartak

After an unexpected away defeat from Orenburg (1:2), Zenit could only rehabilitate itself by defeating its main rival. Spartak won the first two matches in March, away from Sochi (3:2) and at home against Akron Togliatti (4:3). But, given the level of the rivals, it was unclear what the red and white were capable of under new head coach Carlos Carcedo, who started working at the club in January.

Moreover, the Spaniard's team failed the first test by a top club, defeating Dynamo Moscow (2:5) in the first match of the semi-final of the "RPL Way" of the Russian Cup. Now Spartak has very few chances to win the final match in the second leg, which will be held on March 18.

Nevertheless, the Spartak players initially had a good meeting with Zenit. In the first half, they even had the advantage and had more chances to open the scoring. However, just before the break, out of the blue, the red-whites created problems for themselves. After a cross from the corner, the ball ended up with Douglas Santos, who walked away from the goal and posed no danger to the visitors, but for some reason Pablo Solari pulled the shirt of the St. Petersburg Brazilian.

The referee awarded a penalty, which was confidently implemented by Alexander Sobolev. After the break, Zenit already had more chances, although Spartak had the opportunity to equalize. Nevertheless, towards the end of the meeting, in the 82nd minute, the hosts earned another penalty — John Duran scored from it. There were two episodes during the game when, according to Spartak players and a number of outside observers, the referees should have removed Wendel and Sobolev from the field, but this did not happen.

As a result, Zenit remains second, one point behind Krasnodar. Spartak is still sixth— with Muscovites leading by as many as 11 points.

—Despite all the difficulties in the game, Zenit deserved to win," Andrei Chervichenko, the former owner of Spartak, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — There was a lot of fuss on both sides, partly Peter was lucky with the first penalty, which arose due to outright stupidity performed by Solari. But overall, Zenit has built up its tactics well. Yes, Spartak had an advantage in certain periods, and they put a lot of pressure on us. But this team has already been exhausted more than once minutes after the 70th. This was especially evident in the cup meeting with Dynamo. So Zenit prepared for this and gradually increased in the course of the game, in the end without giving any chance to the opponent.

Nevsky stress: Spartak and Zenit approach the match under pressure from critics

The Muscovites conceded 10 goals in three games, while the Petersburgers lost to an outsider.

Rubin – Lokomotiv

A round earlier, Loko lost points at home in the match with Akhmat (2:2) and missed the chance to catch up with the leading Krasnodar in the table, which then lost away to Rubin (1:2). Now the "railwaymen" have already arrived in Kazan. This match closed the tour program. It was already known that Krasnodar and Zenit had won their matches the day before, so now the question for Lokomotiv was not how to catch up with competitors, but how not to let them break away.

But everything quickly went wrong according to the scenario of Mikhail Galaktionov's wards. In the middle of the first half, Rubin took the lead thanks to Igor Vujacic's goal. The situation for the guests worsened before the break, when they were outnumbered by the removal of Maxim Nenakhov.

In the second half, Yegor Teslenko's excellent shot led to the ball bouncing off the crossbar into the Loko goal, and Rubin's advantage doubled. Towards the end of the meeting, Daniil Kuznetsov brought the matter to a rout with the transfer of Ruslan Bezrukov.

Rubin, under new head coach Frank Artigue, has already won its second victory at home. And again, over the gold contender. The team remains in seventh place. Lokomotiv is still third, but it is already five points behind the leader.

— The hardest match. Even if we don't take the score, we didn't succeed in the game," Lokomotiv midfielder Artyom Karpukas commented on the last game to Izvestia. — We need to change something, rethink what happened today. It's not even that someone has left us, and it's not a big bill. It's just that we didn't have a good game in this match.

Baltika – CSKA

After a strong winter transfer campaign, the Army team was considered the favorites in the fight for the championship. But in the spring we lost both first meetings in the RPL — first away to Akhmat Grozny (0:1), and then there was a home defeat from Dynamo Moscow (1:4). As a result, CSKA approached the match with Baltika, having the same number of points with Kaliningrad, who had not won a single victory in the spring part of the season before this game.

Due to the suspension, the red-Blues could not count on their main striker Luciano Gonda, who received a red card in the game against Dynamo. However, the first half turned out to be very combative and even with the advantage of the army.

After the break, Baltika leveled the situation and managed to take advantage of an opponent's mistake in one of the episodes, when another CSKA star Dmitry Barinov unsuccessfully took the ball away from his penalty area, hitting teammate Ivan Oblyakov.

After bouncing off the last one, Brian Hill entered the red-blue penalty area and accurately shot into the far corner of the goal. In the remaining time, Baltika confidently brought the matter to victory, and in the last minutes there was a scandal.

When the ball rolled off the field towards Kaliningrad head coach Andrei Talalaev, he did not give it to Enrique Carmo, who was running up, but knocked it into the stands. Carmo, who was about to throw the ball into the field, got into a fight with the opponent's mentor, after which the players and staff of both teams, as well as CSKA head coach Fabio Celestini, ran there. He had a fierce argument with Talalaev.

Both coaches were eventually removed from the benches, and now they will be disqualified. Talalaev has recently served one such sentence, so now for a relapse he may face a long suspension from the RFU KDC.

Thanks to this victory, Baltika reduced the gap from the third-placed Lokomotiv to two points. CSKA is five points ahead of Loko.

There were also five more matches in the last round. Krasnodar almost missed out on a guest victory over the last-placed Sochi. At the end of the match, with the score 1-0 in favor of the Bulls, Sochi equalized, but then conceded from the penalty spot and almost lost their chances of saving themselves from relegation from the RPL." Krasnodar retained its leadership in the championship after this victory.

Akron Togliatti, thanks to Artem Dzyuba's goal, equalized the score at the end of the home match with Akhmat Grozny and drew 1-1.

Pari Nizhny Novgorod defeated Krylia Sovetov Samara (2:0) at home, and Dynamo Makhachkala defeated Orenburg (1:0). Dynamo Moscow minimally beat Rostov away (1-0).