Sports weekend with Izvestia

Football. A friendly match. Russia – Nicaragua

The Russian national football team will play its first matches in 2026. Our team is waiting for friendly games with Nicaragua and Mali. The first of them will be held on March 27 in Krasnodar. The maximum possible attendance is expected. The Russian national team will play for the first time since November.

March 27, 7:30 p.m. Krasnodar Stadium (Krasnodar).

Live broadcasts on Match TV and Match Premier.

Away as at home: the top three of the RPL won their matches

Krasnodar, Zenit and Lokomotiv ended March with confident victories

Hockey. Gagarin Cup. The first round. Third and fourth matches

The KHL playoffs kicked off this week. And the series of the first round is gradually coming to its middle. In the coming days, the third and fourth matches in each of the eight matches will be held. On March 27 and 29, SKA St. Petersburg will host CSKA Moscow in the Western Conference, to which it loses 0:2 in the series, and Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod will play at home with Severstal Cherepovets — the score in this confrontation is 1:1.

In the Eastern Conference, on the same days, Traktor Chelyabinsk will have to try to win back the 0:2 gap in the series with Ak Bars Kazan on its ice, and Salavat Yulaev Ufa, having achieved a 1-1 draw following the results of away matches with Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg, will now play the Ural team twice at home.

On March 28, the third matches in four other series will take place: in the West, we will have two games in the capital between Dynamo Moscow and Minsk, as well as Spartak and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, in the East Omsk Avangard will visit Nizhnekamsk Neftekhimik, and Magnitogorsk will visit Novosibirsk Sibir. Metallurg.

March 27th:
17:00, Valery Belousov Traktor Arena (Chelyabinsk);
17:00, Ufa Arena (Ufa);
19:30, KRK "Nagorny" (Nizhny Novgorod);
19:30, SKK "Ice Palace" (St. Petersburg).

March 28th:
13:30, Sibir Arena (Novosibirsk);
14:30, Neftekhim Arena (Nizhnekamsk);
17:00, VTB Arena (Moscow);
17:00, Megasport (Moscow).

March 29th:
13:30, Ufa Arena (Ufa);
14:30, Valery Belousov Traktor Arena (Chelyabinsk);
17:00, KRK "Nagorny" (Nizhny Novgorod);
17:00, IC "Ice Palace" (St. Petersburg).

Live broadcasts on Match TV, KHL TV, KHL Prime and Kinopoisk.

Beautiful blue: CSKA won 2-0 in the army derby

The Muscovites won both home matches against the Petersburgers, Ak Bars also took two meetings, and in other series the intrigue is still only twisting.

Chess. The Candidates' Tournament

One of the main events of the year in world chess starts in Cyprus on March 28. The candidates tournament will be held for almost three weeks, the winner of which will have the opportunity to compete for the title of world champion with the current holder of the Chess crown, Hindu Gukesh Dommaraju.

Among the participants of the candidates tournament is Russian Andrey Esipenko. His competitors are Americans Fabiano Caruana and Hikaro Nakamura, Hindu Rameshbabu Pragnanandha, Chinese Wei Yi, Uzbek Javokhir Sindarov, German Matthias Blubaum and Dutch Anish Giri.

March 29, 16:30, Cap St Georges Hotel (Peyia, Cyprus).

Live broadcasts on the FIDE website.

"If Nakamura wins, it will be a mockery of chess"

Russian national team coach Vladimir Potkin on the Cyprus tournament and Andrey Esipenko's chances

Ski racing. The Russian Cup. The final

The winter sports season is almost over. Russian skiers will have their last starts as part of the Russian Cup final, which will be held in two stages. The first one will be held next weekend in Apatity in the Murmansk region. The second one is next week in Kirovsk. All the stars of Russian skiing will gather in the final. The special status of the competition is given by the fact that for the first time in 2026, we will see recent Olympic participants Daria Nepryaeva and Savely Korosteleva at the domestic starts. They have not participated in competitions within Russia since December, as they were allowed to participate in the World Cup and the Olympics. And now that the international season is over, they have returned to the country, where they will perform in front of their fans.

March 28, individual race, free style, 3.3 km:
11:00 a.m., women;
12:30 p.m., men.

March 29, individual race, free style, 10 km:
11:00 a.m., women;
13:00, men.

The Athlete Sports Complex (Apatity).

Live broadcasts on Match TV, Match Arena and Match Planet.

On four and five: Korostelev and Nepryaeva are approaching KM medals

They are most successful in skiathlon, but they are not friends with sprints.

Biathlon. Russian Championship

The Russian biathlon season will end this week. The final races in this sport will be held as part of the last stage of the Russian Championship, which will be held in the village of Uvat, Tyumen region. It began on March 26 with a men's supersuit. On March 27, we will have a women's super—marathon, and on the weekend there will be women's and men's marathons.

March 27, super suite, women:
10:00 a.m., qualifying, 3.3 km;
12:00 p.m., final, 6 km.

March 28, 09:30, marathon, 40 km, men.

March 29, 09:30, marathon, 30 km, women.

Alexander Tikhonov Biathlon Center (Uvat village, Tyumen region).

Live broadcasts on Match TV, Match Arena and Match Planet.