The Baltic test: will the Kaliningrad club stop the RPL leader

The Russian Football Championship is coming to the finish line. There are six rounds left until the end of the season, and the fight for gold between the reigning champion Krasnodar and Zenit St. Petersburg continues at the top of the table. In the upcoming 25th round, Krasnodar will play at home with Baltika Kaliningrad, and Zenit will visit Dynamo Makhachkala.

Krasnodar – Baltika

Thanks to the sensational performance of Baltika in the current championship, this match has become the centerpiece of the upcoming round. Andrey Talalaev's team lost only two games, and both misfires occurred away from top clubs - CSKA and Zenit — with a minimum score (0:1) and goals conceded in the last minutes.

The Kaliningrad club is actively fighting for the bronze medals — it ranks fourth, just one point behind Moscow's Lokomotiv, which closes the top three. The match against Krasnodar will be the last that Baltika will play without their head coach Andrei Talalaev.

In March, at the end of the victorious match with CSKA (1-0), he knocked the ball onto the podium, which was supposed to be put into play by the army player Carmo, after which there was a massive brawl between the players and coaches of both teams. For this, the RFU KDK disqualified Talalaev for four championship matches. The last one will be on the next tour.

At the same time, the team spent the last week without their coach and in the preparatory cycle, as the 52-year-old specialist was on sick leave and had recently undergone surgery.

Krasnodar is still in the lead in the championship and retained the first place after an away draw in the last round with Zenit (1:1), keeping a one-point lead over St. Petersburg. To get closer to the second consecutive championship title, it is desirable for the bulls to defeat Baltika.

— I think Baltika has little chance to take away points from Krasnodar, — Dmitry Bulykin, a former striker of the Russian national team, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — Of course, the Kaliningrad team will fight, as always, they will show dedication, but judging by the last matches, they no longer have the same physical readiness that they had for most of the season and allowed them to go to the top of the table. In addition, in terms of emotions, Talalaev's absence will have an effect. So, Baltika can still compete for bronze, but there is almost no chance in the match against Krasnodar. Especially if John Cordoba is fine with the Bulls.

Dynamo (Makhachkala) – Zenit

The St. Petersburg club, having failed to win at home against Krasnodar, made it more difficult for itself to regain the title of national champion, which it held for six seasons in a row — from 2018 to 2024, but which it lost last season. Now Sergei Semak's wards are going to visit Dynamo Makhachkala.

Zenit already had problems with this team in March, when the St. Petersburg team narrowly beat the Dagestan club at home in the Path of the Regions of the Russian Cup with a minimum score of 1:0. The only goal was scored from the penalty spot, the appointment of which caused a scandal in the football community and was subsequently found to be erroneous following a meeting of the RFU ESC. At that time, the Makhachkala team did not play completely with the main squad.

They will most likely release all the strongest players in the championship, as it is extremely important for them to score points in order to keep their place in the RPL for the next season. So far, Vadim Evseev's team is in 11th place, allowing them to remain in the Premier League without transitional matches. However, the gap from the joint zone (13th-14th places) is only two points, and from the direct relegation zone (15th-16th places) — three points.

"We really want to win against Zenit and we will do everything to please our fans," Nikita Glushkov, midfielder of Dynamo Makhachkala, told Izvestia. — It's not even about revanchist sentiments after that penalty in the cup game. It's just that the mood is always exorbitant for such rivals as Zenit, Krasnodar, Spartak, and Lokomotiv. You need to show your best game. We have already done this in the away game of the Cup. It remains to show this at home in the championship.

Orenburg – Lokomotiv

Lokomotiv, which is in third place, competed for gold a month and a half ago, but won only once in the last five championship matches. And now he is eight points behind Krasnodar, which is almost impossible to win back in six rounds. For the "railwaymen", the main thing remains to stay in the top three.

Baltika, CSKA and Spartak are breathing down his back. Therefore, Loko must definitely beat Orenburg away. But it won't be easy. Ildar Akhmetzyanov's team is in the penultimate 15th place in the direct relegation zone, but they are only one point behind 14th place (the zone of transitional matches) and two points behind 12th, which gives the right to remain in the RPL without joints.

At the same time, Orenburg has repeatedly shown in the spring that it is capable of scoring points in games with top clubs. In March, he won at home against Zenit (2:1), and in early April he drew away with Dynamo Moscow (3:3). And he may well repeat one of these results at home with Lokomotiv.

"We can play to win with any team in the RPL, which we have proven more than once this spring," Orenburg defender Danila Vedernikov said in a conversation with Izvestia. — I think we can score enough points to stay in the RPL. I felt it back in the fall, when Akhmetzyanov took over the team. And during the winter training camp, when he was able to explain his requirements to us and work with us more, we added even more. So I believe that we will successfully spend the rest of the championship.

Spartak – Akhmat

The Grozny club has lost only once in the last eight rounds — at home to the leading Krasnodar with an equal game, conceding in the last minutes (0:1). After the summer arrival of Stanislav Cherchesov as head coach, Akhmat gained a foothold in the middle of the table, although last season it was very difficult to avoid relegation from the RPL following the results of the transition matches.

Now the Chechen team is confidently positioned in the top ten and will try to resist Spartak, which joined the fight for bronze this spring. The red and white are three points behind Lokomotiv. And after the away draw with Rostov (1-1) in the last round, they will do everything not to repeat this misfire.

— This is a match in which all three results are possible, — Andrey Chervichenko, the former owner of Spartak, told Izvestia. — Both teams are unpredictable and can produce both their best match and their worst. But it's not going to be easy for Spartak anyway. I do not believe that he will be able to rise to third place. Most likely, all hope remains for the Russian Cup, where the semi-final against CSKA Moscow will be in May. Cherchesov is good as a strategist and is able to calculate the game: withstand the initial onslaught of the opponent in the first 20-30 minutes, then level the game, and after the 60-70 minutes, when the red and white begin to tire, catch them on the counterattack. This is what Rostov did in the last match, when Spartak frankly escaped defeat. Akhmat can do the same.

There will also be four more matches in the upcoming round. CSKA will visit Krylia Sovetov. Rostov will host Sochi. Dynamo Moscow will play away from Pari Nizhny Novgorod. Rubin will face Akron at home.