Dynamo is thundering: the blue and white defeated Spartak and are preparing for CSKA

The 20th round starts in the Russian Championship. Its main event will be the CSKA Moscow — Dynamo derby. The Army team is trying to close the gap from the leaders, while the blue and white team will be on guard after defeating Spartak (5:2) in the Cup. Rubin's match with tournament leader Krasnodar and Lokomotiv's meeting with a fit Akhmat will also be in the spotlight.

CSKA Moscow — Dynamo

During the winter break, CSKA was almost more active than all the RPL clubs in the transfer market. However, the beginning of the spring part of the season turned out to be ambiguous for the army. The Army team failed to travel to Grozny in the first spring round of the championship, losing to Akhmat. The score of 0:1 should not be misleading — if not for a few saves by Igor Akinfeev, the hosts could have achieved a bigger victory. Part of the red-Blue team's failure can be attributed to the absence of two of their key players, defender Moises and midfielder Ivan Oblyakov.

At the same time, the winter newcomers Dmitry Barinov, Luciano Gondu and Danila Kozlov have not yet had time to prove themselves. Three days later, without Barinov, but with Kozlov in the starting lineup and Gonda replacing him, CSKA managed to rehabilitate itself. The Army team won a strong-willed victory at home over Krasnodar (3:1) in the first match of the semi-final of the "RPL Way" of the Russian Cup.

The derby with Dynamo will largely show how ready the team is to compete for medals. After the defeat in Grozny, CSKA's gap from the leading Krasnodar increased to seven points 11 rounds before the finish, and from third place to four.

In December, Dynamo confirmed Rolan Gusev, who previously worked as an assistant to the previous mentors of the team, Marcel Lichka and Valery Karpin, as head coach, and also served as head coach after their resignations. Now he fully manages the team and got the opportunity to lead the training camp in winter.

Last weekend, the blue and white defeated the Samara Wings of the Soviets at home (4:0). But it is not yet clear how capable the Volzhans are of resisting top clubs, so Dynamo's readiness for spring should be much more clearly shown by two Moscow derbies this week.

The first of them, in the framework of the semi-final of the "RPL Paths" against Spartak, took place on the evening of March 5. Dynamo showed itself in all its glory. It quickly opened the scoring thanks to a goal by Moomi Ngamale. In the middle of the first half, Manfred Ugalde equalized. After that, Spartak had the advantage for a long time. It's all the more surprising that he collapsed in the last 25 minutes of the meeting. From the 67th to the 73rd minute, Dynamo scored three goals — Ngamale, David Ricardo and Konstantin Tyukavin scored. And in the 83rd minute Maxim Osipenko finished off the red and white.

It was only in stoppage time that Christopher Martins reduced Spartak's gap. But his team was on the verge of departure from the "RPL Path" on the eve of the return meeting with Dynamo, which will be held on March 18.

On March 8, Dynamo will face CSKA, which will play its second leg of the RPL Cup semi-final against Krasnodar on March 17. Recall that after the disastrous first part of the championship, Dynamo was stuck in the middle of the table and 16 points behind third place.

Rubin — Krasnodar

The defeat against CSKA in the Russian Cup in Krasnodar was largely explained by the controversial removal of defender Giovanni Gonzalez with the score 1-1.

In the championship, the Bulls began the spring part of the season with a 2-1 home victory over Rostov. Now the RPL leader will travel to Kazan for the match against Rubin.

Over the past two and a half years, the Kazan club has taught the public that it is capable of both losing points with rivals from the bottom of the table and taking them away from the leaders. But in the winter, head coach Rashid Rakhimov was fired from Rubin. He was replaced by Spaniard Frank Artiga, who previously headed Khimki.

His first official match in the championship ended in an away defeat to Dynamo Makhachkala. And it is not yet clear to what extent Kazan is able to resist the reigning champion and take away his points.

"I can explain the defeat against CSKA with a red card,— Krasnodar defender Valentin Fingers told Izvestia. — For the second game in a row, the referees put incomprehensible fouls, incomprehensible cards, incomprehensible penalties in our direction. I can't comment on that — let the RFU sort it out. Is it an accident? A pattern. It's not that it's unsettling, it's just that this attitude towards us is incomprehensible. What do I expect from the match against Rubin? It's going to be cold. And a good opponent will be playing against us.

Lokomotiv — Akhmat

Lokomotiv resumed the season with a 2-1 home league victory over Pari Nizhny Novgorod. On March 5, he played in the quarterfinals of the Path of the Regions of the Russian Cup against Arsenal Tula in the First league. Formally, this meeting is an away match, but due to the unavailability of the field in Tula, the RFU moved it to Khimki.

Loko led 2-0 in the first half, but before the break allowed the opponent to close the gap in the score. In the second half, Tula pushed the railwaymen a few times well, who in the end could not avoid the hassle due to a penalty scored by Alexei Batrakov. But they still held the winning score and advanced to the next round of the Path of the Regions, where they will have an away match with Krylia Sovetov.

"As always, we went into this match with the intention to win," Lokomotiv striker Nikolai Komlichenko told Izvestia. — It wasn't easy for us in the second half, but only because we couldn't score the third goal. And we let Arsenal run away on the counterattack. Perhaps because of this, it seemed that there was nervousness, but on the whole our team felt calm.

Now Loko will host Akhmat, who managed to gain a foothold in the middle of the table in the fall with the arrival of head coach Stanislav Cherchesov. And after the victory over CSKA, he showed that no one would just be with him.

—Akhmat has always been a good team that fights to the last," Komlichenko added. — Especially now that they have Stanislav Salamovich Cherchesov as their head coach, that says a lot. We just won't. As always, we need to play harder from behind, without mistakes, and try to score goals in front — that's nothing new.

Also this week, three more matches took place in the "Path of the Regions" of the Russian Cup. Zenit St. Petersburg beat out Baltika Kaliningrad, beating them 0:1. Rostov was eliminated from the tournament as a result of a home defeat from Dynamo Makhachkala (0:2). And Krylia Sovetov went further, defeating Orenburg at home (2:0).

There will also be five more meetings in the 20th round of the championship. Rostov will host Baltika. In the battle of two outsiders, Pari Nizhny Novgorod will play Sochi at home. Spartak Moscow will face Akron Togliatti on their home field. Zenit will visit Orenburg. And Krylia Sovetov will play against Dynamo Makhachkala at home.