Promoted to the Cup: the clubs will play three semi-finals of the tournament
It's time for decisive matches in the Russian Football Cup. This week, the semi-finals will take place, which, due to the specifics of the tournament format, will be three. On the Way to the regions, Zenit St. Petersburg will host Spartak Moscow, while CSKA Moscow will face Krylia Sovetov Samara. The winners of these meetings will later play against each other in the finals of the Path of the Regions, where they will compete to reach the Superfinal, the decisive game of the Cup. The second participant in the Superfinal will be determined based on the results of a two—match standoff in the RPL finals between Dynamo Moscow and Krasnodar - the first game will take place in the capital this week.
Zenit — Spartak
The two principal rivals will determine between themselves who will continue to fight for the trophy, and who will finally lose the chance to win it. The specifics of the Russian Cup format, which has been in effect since 2022, imply that RPL clubs have the opportunity to continue playing even after defeat — having flown out of the RPL Path, they continue to fight in the Path of the regions.
But Zenit and Spartak have already spent their limit on defeats. Both lost the RPL to Dynamo Moscow on the Way. The St. Petersburg club lost to the blue and white in the quarterfinals back in November. (1:3; 1:0). This fate awaited the red-whites following the results of the March semi-final. (2:5, 1:0).
Now Zenit and Spartak are playing against each other in the Path of the regions. The loser finally leaves the tournament. For the red-whites, this will be highly undesirable, since winning the Cup is the main chance to rehabilitate themselves for their unsuccessful performance in the championship. Juan Carcedo's team is in sixth place there. However, in the last round they moved closer to the third place, beating the Moscow "Locomotive" (2:1). Now the Spartacists are only three points behind the railwaymen.
But they lose 11 points to the leading Krasnodar. In other words, Spartak is not going to win the championship, so it is important for them to win the Cup. Zenit is second in the championship, just one point behind Krasnodar. Sergei Semak's wards are fighting a desperate battle on two fronts. But they are unlikely to give up the chance to compete for the Cup.
—With all its current problems, Zenit looks like the favorite for the upcoming game," said former Spartak owner Andrei Chervichenko. — And if he is judged in the same way as in the last cup match against Dynamo Makhachkala (Zenit won 1-0 thanks to a penalty kick, the appointment of which was found to be erroneous. — Ed.), then the red and white have no chance at all. However, there are few of them as it is, since Spartak plays well only in segments, which is enough for victories over outsiders such as Sochi (3:2), Akron (4:3) and Orenburg (2:0), even over the troubled Lokomotiv (2:1), but not over Zenit, which still has enough class to take away such matches. Therefore, Spartak can win in St. Petersburg only with great luck and if they play a perfect match from the first to the last minute.
Dynamo — Krasnodar
The final of the RPL Path is the only stage in this tournament bracket, a defeat in which does not mean a transition to the "Path of the Regions", but a complete relegation from the Cup. Therefore, for Krasnodar and Dynamo, a loss in the sum of two matches is highly undesirable. The Bulls are leading the championship and have a good chance of winning the RPL gold for the second year in a row.
But they are unlikely to give up the prospect of competing for the Russian Cup, which they have never won in history. For Dynamo, this tournament has become a key one in the season, after they failed the championship in the summer and autumn under the leadership of Valery Karpin and were in 10th place after the first round. Under Rolan Gusev, who replaced him, the blue and white team rose to seventh place in the RPL, but there was no chance of medals left.
Therefore, now the most important thing for Dynamo is the Cup, where they reached the penultimate stage. This trophy was the last to be won by the club in its history. In 1995, Dynamo won the Russian Cup and has not won a single trophy since.
"We really want to win the Russian Cup and please our fans, who haven't seen a trophy in a long time," Dynamo midfielder Timofey Marinkin told Izvestia. — We will do everything to achieve this. We understand that there will be matches against a difficult opponent. Krasnodar is a very good team, it was not by chance that they won the last championship and are leading this year. But if we play our best football, we will have a good chance of reaching the decisive stage of the Cup.
Krylia Sovetov — CSKA
One of the most important trophies will be the current Russian Cup for CSKA. The Army team won it last season, combining this with the bronze medals of the championship. However, shortly after that, head coach Marko Nikolic unexpectedly left the club and joined the Greek AEK.
Swiss Fabio Celestini, who replaced the Serb, successfully spent the first part of the season, joining the fight for the championship. In the winter, he received a large—scale reinforcement - midfielder Dmitry Barinov, striker Luciano Gondu, midfielder Danila Kozlov, defenders Mateus Reis and Kirill Danilov joined CSKA.
But instead of fighting for gold, there was a failure in March. Three defeats in the championship essentially cut off the red and blue from the race for first place. After two wins in recent matches — at home over Dynamo Makhachkala (3:1) and away over Akron Togliatti (2:1), CSKA partially improved its standings. But the gap from the leader is 10 points, so you can forget about gold.
There are good chances for the RPL bronze medal, where the gap from third place is two points. But the problem is that even the last two victories over weaker teams were won with great difficulty, with not very high-quality play. All this was compounded by the March failure in the Path of the RPL Cup.
CSKA won the first match at home against Krasnodar with a score of 3:1. And it was the best game of the Celestini team in the spring. But there was a setback in the return game. A 0-4 away defeat, while the opponent could have scored a few more goals. Reis and the main defender of the Army, Moises, also received red cards out of the blue.
Later it became known that there was a conflict between Moises and Celestini in the locker room. After the team returned from Krasnodar, the Brazilian was suspended from training. He was not in the application for the game with Makhachkala. Then there was a two-week break for the national team games, during which Moises returned to training with the base, but spent the match with Akron on the bench.
It is unclear whether Krylia Sovetov will be able to take advantage of the problems of the army, which is weaker in budget and composition than its rival and is also in deep crisis itself. They are fighting for survival in the RPL. Samaritans are in 13th place in the championship, in the zone of transitional matches. The club broke away from the direct relegation zone by only two points.
To top it all off, the head coach of the team, Magomed Adiev, was dismissed last week. The management did not forgive him for his trip to Kazakhstan, where he allegedly negotiated with the local Aktobe club. Although the coach himself claimed that the conversation was not about moving there this spring, but about possible cooperation at the end of the season.
Adiev was replaced by Sergey Bulatov, who worked for a long time as an assistant to the head coaches of the Samaritans. According to rumors, he had a conflict with his predecessor. The first match under his leadership was lost away to Zenit in the championship. At the same time, in March, Krylia, back under Adieyev, were able to knock Lokomotiv out of the Cup, defeating him on penalties (5:4) after a draw in regular time (2:2).
Krylia Sovetov's match with CSKA will be held on April 6. Two more meetings will take place a day later. Krasnodar's return game with Dynamo and the final of the Path of the Regions will be held in early May. The superfinal is scheduled for May 24.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
