Shock ending: Spartak's reserve goalkeeper knocked Zenit out of the Cup

The finalists of the Path of the Regions were determined in the Russian Football Cup. They became Spartak Moscow and CSKA. The first one won away from Zenit St. Petersburg — after a goalless draw in regular time, it was better in a penalty shootout. The second defeated the Samara Wings of the Soviets on the road (5:2). In the final of the "RPL Path", the first match between Dynamo Moscow and Krasnodar ended in a goalless draw.

Zenit — Spartak

As expected, the St. Petersburg club did not come to the game with the most basic squad, as it has a decisive championship match ahead of it — on April 12, the blue-white-blues will host the leading Krasnodar, which they are one point behind. In other words, this meeting will take place four days after the cup game with Spartak. Therefore, against the red-whites, for example, striker Alexander Sobolev did not start, who is having an extremely productive spring.

The Spartacists released almost the entire base. At the same time, their head coach Juan Carcedo once again chose a scheme without nominal attackers, putting Pablo Solari at the forefront of the attack. For most of the first half, the teams played expressionlessly at the other team's goal, almost without creating chances. It was only in the middle of the half that the audience saw a good shot by Wendel, deflected by Spartak goalkeeper Alexander Maksimenko.

Just before the break, the guests had a unique chance to open the scoring when a penalty was awarded to Zenit. However, Ezequiel Barco did not hit the center hard, and St. Petersburg goalkeeper Evgeny Latyshonok saw through the Argentine's plan, kicked the ball and took it into his hands.

In the second half, Zenit head coach Sergei Semak replaced his leaders, Sobolev and Maxim Glushenkov. And also the young Daniil Kondakov, who almost brought victory to the hosts at the end of regular time, but could not hit Maksimenko at point-blank range.

Spartak's goalkeeper was replaced in the last minutes by Ilya Pomazun, who was entrusted with defending the red—and-white goal in a penalty shootout. And it worked — Pomazun hit back two times, while the Latvian made only one save. Spartak won the penalty shootout 7-6 and moved on.

Dynamo — Krasnodar

Before the decisive game in the championship against Zenit, Krasnodar also conducted a partial rotation of the squad for the Cup, not releasing striker John Cordoba in the game against Dynamo from the first minutes. The blue and white team came out completely as a base, which is not surprising for a team that has the Cup as a key tournament this spring, as Dynamo players have already lost their chances of winning medals in the championship.

The key change in their squad is the return of goalkeeper Andrey Lunev after an injury on the field, who has not played since March 1, when Dynamo defeated Samara Krylia Sovetov 4-0 in the first game of the spring. The heavy workload of the hosts for this tournament affected for most of the matches. They had a territorial advantage and created some good chances. It seemed that Dynamo was closer to scoring, but in the end they did not open the opponent's goal. In the end, Konstantin Tyukavin scored the ball, but he did it from an offside position, so the referee did not count it.

Shortly before that, Krasnodar was outnumbered — for the second match in a row, midfielder Alexander Chernikov was sent off at the end of the meeting, slapping Juan Jose Caceres in the face. Three days earlier, Chernikov also received a second yellow card at the end of the championship game with Akhmat Grozny (1-0), which turned into a red one. Now he will not be in Krasnodar's two key spring matches — with Zenit in the championship and Dynamo in the Cup.

"It's hard to say how much Chernikov's absence will affect these games," Krasnodar goalkeeper Stanislav Agkatsev said in a conversation with Izvestia. — But in any case, we will do everything to win these two meetings. We are as focused as possible on the Cup, we do not divide two tournaments into important and unimportant ones. That's why we wanted to win Dynamo's first match, but an away draw is also a good result. So we will do everything to win at home in the return game and advance to the Superfinal.

Krylia Sovetov — CSKA

Both teams are failing in the spring part of the season, but CSKA at least had victories in the last two matches of the championship - at home over Dynamo Makhachkala (3:1) and away over Akron Togliatti (2:1). These are not the strongest rivals, and even their army men won with difficulty.

Nevertheless, few doubted that they would pass Krylia, who had recently changed their head coach and were walking near the relegation zone in the RPL. Samaritans are clearly focused on the fight for survival in the championship, so they released a non-core squad in the Cup.

CSKA head coach Fabio Celestini, having almost lost his chances of RPL gold, did not try his luck in the Cup, having almost completely released the foundation. In the end, his team won without much difficulty. Luciano Gonda opened the scoring at the beginning of the game, and then he scored twice more. Thanks to the Argentine striker's hat-trick, the Red and blue led 3-0 by the end of the first hour of the meeting. And they calmly brought the game to a 5-2 victory.

The final of the Path of the Regions and the return match of the final of the Path of the RPL will be held on May 5-7. The winners of these finals will meet on May 24 in Moscow at the Luzhniki Stadium in the Superfinal of the Russian Cup, where the winner of the tournament will be revealed.