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

The Russian Football Championship has gone on its first two-week spring break related to the national team games. In the 22nd round, the last one in March, all the leaders won. Zenit St. Petersburg defeated Dynamo Moscow (3:1) and retained second place. And his competitors in the fight for gold, Krasnodar and Moscow's Lokomotiv— won major victories at home. The Bulls defeated Pari Nizhny Novgorod (5:0), the Railwaymen defeated Tolyatti Akron (5:1).

Dynamo (Moscow) — Zenit

Dynamo had a very successful March, in which they scored three victories in the first three spring matches of the national championship, and also passed Spartak Moscow in the Russian Cup. (5:2; 0:1), where they will compete with Krasnodar for reaching the Superfinal now is the decisive match in the battle for this trophy. It was clear that Rolan Gusev's team was on the move, so there was a high probability that it would trip up Zenit, which was fighting for the championship.

There were prerequisites for this in the first half. Dynamo responded to John's away goal with Arthur's ball. But still, just before the break, the Petersburgers took the lead again — Alexander Sobolev scored. In the second half, all attempts by the hosts to win back were in vain, and at the end of the meeting Maxim Glushenkov scored their third goal. Zenit won and is still one point behind the leading Krasnodar. Dynamo is in ninth place, 15 points behind the top three.

"Unfortunately, we conceded three goals and lost, so we'll watch the game and figure out why we got such a result," Dynamo Moscow goalkeeper Kurban Rasulov told Izvestia. — It is difficult to analyze the causes of defeat in hot pursuit. We knew that the opponent was an individually strong team that was fighting for gold. We prepared for it, analyzed its strengths and weaknesses. We understood that there are always chances to win. Moreover, in recent years, Dynamo has managed to win against Zenit more than once. But unfortunately, he turned out to be stronger today.

"My dad is a Dynamo fan, so my personal goal is to win the Cup."

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Krasnodar — Pari Nizhny Novgorod

In the previous two rounds, Pari Nizhny Novgorod managed to score two wins and get out of the relegation zone. But the gap from the competitors in the struggle for survival was only one point. Therefore, Alexey Shpilevsky's wards need to cling to the matches against the favorites.

But Krasnodar quickly dispelled the illusions about the intrigue. Two quick goals by John Cordoba allowed the leader and the reigning champion of the country to control the course of the meeting. At the beginning of the second half, the Colombian scored a hat-trick, and at the end of the meeting scored the fourth goal. Nikita Krivtsov also scored in front of him.

This crushing victory allowed Murad Musayev's team to retain the first place eight rounds before the finish of the championship. At the same time, Paris NN avoided falling into the relegation zone, as its competitors also lost in this round. Nizhny Novgorod are in 14th place, in the zone of transitional matches. The gap from Orenburg, which occupies the 15th place (the zone of direct departure from the RPL), is two points.

Lokomotiv — Akron

Three days before this match, Lokomotiv was eliminated from the Russian Cup. The Railwaymen lost away to the Samara Wings of the Soviets — 2:2 in regular time and 4:5 on penalties. Before that, there were two misfires in the championship — a home draw with Akhmat Grozny (2:2) and an away defeat against Rubin Kazan (0:3).

This made it much more difficult for Mikhail Galaktionov's team to fight for the championship. Their gap has grown to five points from Krasnodar and four from Zenit. After both competitors won last weekend, Loko needed to beat Akron.

The red-greens quickly began to solve this problem — Cesar Montes opened the scoring in the seventh minute. After the same number of minutes, Akron equalized thanks to a goal from Kevin Arevalo. But it soon became clear that this was only the appearance of the guests' resistance. Even before the end of the first half, Lokomotiv buried the intrigue by scoring four goals. Alexander Rudenko, Zelimkhan Bakaev, Dmitry Vorobyov and Alexey Batrakov scored.

Loko remains third and Akron tenth, but still retains the risk of relegation. The gap from Orenburg is four points, and from Krylia Sovetov, which leads the transition zone in 13th place, is only one point.

There were also five more matches in the last round. For the first time this spring, CSKA Moscow scored points in the championship. The army team suddenly fell into crisis after the recent departure from the "RPL Path" of the Russian Cup from Krasnodar (3:1; 0:4) Moises, the leading defender of the team, was suspended from the main squad, rumored to have spoken loudly in the locker room during halftime of the match with the Bulls.

Without him, in the last round of the championship, the red and blue were able to beat Dynamo Makhachkala at home (3:1) and retain fifth place with a five-point gap from Loko, which closes the top three. Baltika Kaliningrad, which is ahead of CSKA, defeated Sochi, which occupies the last place (4:0) at home and is one point ahead of the Army team. Sochi is 11 points behind the transition zone and has almost lost any chance of escaping relegation.

Spartak Moscow won away from Orenburg (2:0). Akhmat Grozny minimally defeated Rostov at home (1-0). Samara "Wings of the Soviets" drew with Kazan "Rubin" (0:0) at home.