VAR in the law: the first round of the RPL after a pause was drowned in judicial scandals
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- VAR in the law: the first round of the RPL after a pause was drowned in judicial scandals
Following the results of the first matches after the resumption of the Russian championship, a significant part of the conversations, discussions and disputes are somehow related to the quality of the referees' work. VAR regularly interfered in the game, and fans will continue to discuss extremely obscure referee decisions in the Zenit – Baltika, Krasnodar – Rostov and Lokomotiv – Paris NN matches for a long time. For more information, see the Izvestia article.
Zenit — Baltika
Zenit approached the game with Baltika in a festive mood. Sergey Semak turned 50 years old on this day. St. Petersburg fans showed a special banner dedicated to the most decorated head coach in the history of the blue-white-Blues.
Zenit had more possession of the ball in the first half, but the opposing players clearly followed the coaching plan. They forced the fight, often met the opponent high, trying to compensate for the lack of class with a lot of running work. This made it possible to keep its gates intact.
And after the break, the guests started playing even more actively — they began to load the Zenit penalty area more often. At times, Denis Adamov's possessions were really anxious. This, of course, did not suit Semak. Therefore, already in the 61st minute, the coach decided on a double substitution: John and Duran left, Sobolev and Enrique came out. However, as a result of the permutations, it only got worse. The game of the hosts finally went wrong and everything went to Baltika's goal, and she scored it after the standard.
Kevin Andrade found himself alone in the penalty area and superbly shot his head under the near post. However, then the video screens turned on — they saw Hill offside, which was located directly in front of Adamov and influenced the episode. Alexey Sukhoi, after watching the "TV", canceled the goal.
"I think these are just millimeters, and Khil did not participate in the game episode," Igor Semshov, a former Zenit and Russian national football team player, said in an interview with Izvestia. — It seems to me that such a goal should be counted, and Adamov saw the ball, despite the fact that the view was slightly blocked. But Gil did not participate in the attack — the ball was flying in the other direction.
The Baltic fans were terribly unhappy with the decision of the chief referee and started chanting about "the shame of Russian football." And Zenit, it seems, only got angry — the players started up and rushed forward. From the central zone, Glushenkov sent Enrique to the right, Luis deceived Filin with a swing, burst into the penalty area and struck with his right foot — the ball hit Andrade, changed its trajectory and flew into the net!
And how sorry I was for the Colombian. Until recently, he could have become the hero of the match, but in the end scored an own goal (1-0). Zenit won a difficult victory over an unyielding opponent, and it seems that Baltika's uncounted ball will be discussed for a long time.
Krasnodar — Rostov
After Zenit's victory, the reigning champion entered the field, taking the current second place. However, the real pressure is what Rostov faced in their debut. The Donetsk team was literally pushed into the penalty area, and the barrage of attacks that lasted for five starting minutes ended with the intervention of VAR. And at the monitor, the referee made sure that Ronaldo folio was on the spot and Eduard himself punished his opponent with a perfectly executed penalty.
However, remembering the first half of the southern derby, most of all they will say that it was held under the sign of VAR. Anton Frolov was invited to the monitor three times in 45 minutes! If we rely on the opinion of the head of the UEFA refereeing committee, Roberto Rosetti, who believes that video referees should interfere with the game on average once in three matches, Krasnodar fulfilled the norm for the entire round by halftime. As a result, due to the contact of the ball with Cordoba's hand, Batchi's goal was canceled, and Komarov equalized with a penalty awarded after Gonzalez's foul on Ronaldo.
At the beginning of the second half, Chistyakov was sent off the field for a foul on Cordoba. Krasnodar did not get any immediate effect from the numerical advantage. On the contrary, the visitors were closer to scoring. Musayev, however, made the middle line more creative due to substitutions, and this brought results. Having received a pass from deep in the field, Butchy perfectly redirected the ball in the direction of Krivtsov, and he scored in the fourth minute of his stay on the field.
The Donetsk team made the favorite nervous in the end. Several shots were blocked by the Bulls' defenders, goalkeeper Yatimov ran into the penalty area for a couple of the numerous standards, and in the fifth minute Agkatsev saved.
Nevertheless, the champion did not miss his chance, and Vahania was removed before the final whistle after the fourth intervention, as the ball hit his hand when Cordoba tried to hit a defenseless goal. Boselli almost scored from the free kick awarded for this foul. But even without his goal, Krasnodar retained the lead.
"The reaction of my colleagues and the football community as a whole surprises me," said Alexander Bobrov, an expert on refereeing at Sport Express. — Oh, how many VAR-interventions! Oh, what bad offside lines! Gentlemen, comrades, have you been in a long hibernation? Have you not watched the matches of the first part of the season? In December, we summed up the refereeing of the matches of the first part of the championship: in 144 matches of the Russian Championship-2025/26, the refereeing teams, according to our calculations, made 62 mistakes (not including those that were corrected with the help of video assistants). For comparison, during the same period of the last tournament, there were 1.41 times fewer wrong decisions, 44, and 88 for the entire draw. In the 2023/24 season, referees made mistakes 67 times during the entire championship. There have been significantly more VAR interventions: a year ago, video assistants did this 66 times, now it's 89. So the trend is obvious.
Lokomotiv — Paris NN
Loko started very cheerfully and at first did not worry about the defense at all. The hosts constantly pressed in the other half, moved the ball well in positional attacks, and once lured the opponent into their own half and scored after a trademark counterattack. Karpukas' selection, Bakayev's assist, Vorobyov's position selection and touchdown were all executed in an exemplary manner.
At that moment, it was impossible to imagine that one of the key moments would happen only in half an hour. It all started with a foul on Batrakov — Sarfo massaged his knee with spikes, but didn't even get a yellow card. Rudenko immediately committed a similar foul (and did not remain without a card), and after a couple of minutes, for some reason, he cut down Shnaptsev and saw a red card.
Stylistically, the game has hardly changed: Lokomotiv continued to own the ball, hit more often and managed to rebuild. But the main thing was that he pushed the threat away from his side without any problems. However, the situation soon changed. The game contact between Pinyaev and Shnaptsev, it would seem, did not require either the connection of video assistants or the approach of Rafael Shafeev to the monitor. But in the end, a "left" penalty was awarded to the Railwaymen's goal, which Olusegun converted.
After such a match, the referees should be happy that Loko did not swim, scratched out the victory with ten of them and made sure that the referees' mistakes did not affect the result. Lucas Fasson scored the decisive goal 20 minutes before the end of the match.
Dynamo — Krylia Sovetov
Dynamo fans have not had such an anxious mood during the winter break for a long time. The team is already only in 10th place, and here is Rolan Gusev's first serious work experience, the level of which is still unknown, nine injured at the initial stage of training camp (Chavez, Zainutdinov, Babaev, Majstorovich and Alexandrov for this reason were not included in the application for the match with the Wings). lack of much progress in control games.
The match with Krylia should have clarified a lot, because next in the RPL are meetings with CSKA, Rostov away, Zenit. The victory on March 1 was a mandatory program, and the blue and white team took it without any problems, having solved all the issues before the break — 3:0. Tyukavin, Ngamale and Anton Miranchuk scored. And the score for the break could have been even bigger.
The second half turned out to be calmer, the game moved to the center of the field, and the chances began to arise much less frequently. The audience saw only one goal: Gladyshev rocked Bozhin and hit the far corner (4-0).
The main question that remained after the meeting was over: is Dynamo so strong or are Krylia so weak? The spring part of the season will give a global answer, and we will get the first understanding about this very soon: on March 5, Dynamo plays for the Cup with Spartak, and on the 8th — with CSKA in the RPL.
The Sochi–Spartak match was postponed to another date due to the announcement of an unmanned danger regime in Sochi. But CSKA lost to Akhmat in Grozny on Sunday, with Maxim Samorodov scoring the only goal in the fourth minute. The Army team has released the leading three and is now seven points behind Krasnodar, six points behind Zenit, and four points behind Loko.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
