Nervous ending: Zenit and Krasnodar maintain intrigue in the golden race

Zenit St. Petersburg won 3-1 against CSKA Moscow in the 28th round of the Russian Championship and continues to fight for gold against Krasnodar, which is one point behind two matches before the finish. The Bulls beat Tolyatti Akron (1-0) last weekend. The contenders for the championship have moved far ahead of the group of teams that is fighting for third place and continues to play giveaways. The third—placed Lokomotiv drew in the derby with Dynamo (1:1) and did not really take advantage of the defeats of their three pursuers - Spartak Moscow, who lost to Samara Krylia Sovetov (1:2), Kaliningrad Baltika, who lost at home to Rubin Kazan (0:1), and CSKA.

CSKA — Zenit

Shortly before this match, it became known that due to injuries, the Army team would not be able to count on their leaders, goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev and defender Moises, until the end of the season. Defender Matvey Lukin and midfielder Kirill Glebov also dropped out due to injuries.

This all aggravated the already sad situation of CSKA, which was completely failing the second part of the season — Fabio Celestini's team, which seemed to be contenders for gold in the winter, won only two victories in ten spring rounds of the championship.

Now the army men have almost lost their chances of even winning bronze medals. The only way to save the season is to win the Russian Cup. But to do this, in the final of the Path of the Regions, you need to defeat Spartak (the match will take place on May 6), and then win the superfinal against Krasnodar or Dynamo Moscow.

Nevertheless, the start of the match with Zenit gave reason to assume that the red and blue would resist the St. Petersburg club. Already in the fifth minute, Ivan Oblyakov converted a penalty. Soon CSKA had a couple more good chances, but by the middle of the first half, the guests' better physical fitness and organization of the game had an effect.

Igor Diveev equalized the score in the 30th minute. He did not celebrate the goal scored against the club for which he played for more than seven years and from which he left in January, when the Army chose to trade him for striker Luciano Gonda. The striker has scored only one league goal since then. The same number as Diveev after joining Zenit.

In the first 15 minutes of the second half, thanks to goals from Alexander Sobolev and Luis Enrique, the visitors made the score 3-1, calmly brought the game to victory and continued the race with Krasnodar for gold. CSKA remains sixth and is five points behind third place.

"We deserved to win this match," Zenit assistant coach William de Oliveira told Izvestia. — Even when we lost 0:1, we were sure that we would win back. The team showed character and very fast football. I think we played well and had one of our best away games this season.

"Everyone wants to help the team come out on top and stay there"

Zenit football player Alexander Erokhin talks about his readiness for the spring part of the season, the fight for a place at the base and the newcomers of the St. Petersburg club

Akron — Krasnodar

The match in Samara took place the day after the meeting between CSKA and Zenit, so the blue-white-blues secured the first place in the table with their victory over the Army team for at least 22 hours. But then they had to put up with the second place again — Krasnodar managed to win once again, albeit not without difficulty.

The first half was held in an equal struggle with a minimum of chances for both teams. At the beginning of the second half, after a shot from Olas, John Cordoba managed to hit the empty Akron goal, but the referee, after a video review of the moment, recorded a violation of the rules by the Colombian striker in a fight with Tolyatti defender Marat Bokoev.

In the 72nd minute, after unsuccessfully removing the ball from the half of the home team's field, Eduard Spertsyan picked it up and scored on Cordoba. He entered the penalty area and managed to open the scoring with a shot from an acute angle.

In the remaining time, Krasnodar retained the advantage and continues to lead the championship. Akron is in 12th place with a one-point gap from the transition zone.

— It was hard. We controlled the game, but the opponent defended very low, almost all the Akron players were behind the line of the ball. That's why we couldn't create chances in attack," said Krasnodar defender Zhubal. — It's good that in the second half we gradually managed to find opportunities to take someone else's goal, and we used one of them. We are very happy that we managed to win such a difficult match.

"We can play under pressure and get both trophies."

Krasnodar football player Moises Kobnan — about the fight for victory in the championship, the Cup of Russia and Safonov's performance in PSG

Krylia Sovetov — Spartak

Two days before the game between Akron and Krasnodar, local Krylia Sovetov and Spartak Moscow fought in Samara at the same stadium. The red-and-Whites are in the midst of the fight for bronze, and the Wings are desperately trying to avoid relegation from the RPL. And so far they are doing it successfully.

At the end of March, they went through a change of head coach. Instead of Magomed Adiev, Sergey Bulatov took over the post. He didn't start in the best way — two defeats and two draws in the first four league matches. Because of this, the Volga team got as close as possible to the penultimate place and the relegation zone.

But then there were two home wins over Moscow's top clubs. First, Lokomotiv was beaten, and on May 1, Krylia defeated Spartak. Already in the 13th minute, the Samaritans opened the scoring — Fernando Costanza scored from the penalty spot.

Before the break, they were probably better at the game than Spartak, which gained momentum in the spring. Krylia could have doubled the score, but they didn't use their chances. In the second half, Juan Carlos Carcedo's men already had a total advantage. And they deservedly equalized the score in the 68th minute - Manfred Ugalde scored the goal. But the hosts took advantage of one of the few chances at someone else's goal after the break, and Kirill Pechenin brought them victory in the 78th minute.

Krylia rose to 11th place and avoided direct relegation from the RPL. But the gap from the transition zone is only three points, so the struggle continues for the Samaritans. Spartak remained on the fourth line and gave Loko a chance to build up the lead in the fight for the bronze.

"We've been playing better lately, so the points have gone," Krylia goalkeeper Sergey Pesyakov said in a conversation with Izvestia. — We were lucky in the game against Spartak, but in general, I think we deserved our luck with our game. It is very pleasant to always win, but now it is important to continue this winning streak in the remaining two matches. We have no right to make mistakes — we need to solve the problem of staying in the RPL.

"If we had fewer injuries, the team's results would be better"

Krylia Sovetov football player Sergey Bozhin — about the reasons for the autumn failures of the Volga Region and the secrets of survival in the RPL

Lokomotiv — Dynamo (Moscow)

Lokomotiv played their match just after Spartak's defeat in Samara. The opponent of the "Railwaymen", Dynamo Moscow, has long been stuck in the middle of the championship table, and the main tournament for him now is the Cup of Russia. On May 7, Rolan Gusev's team will play an away second leg against Krasnodar in the final of the RPL Road. The first game ended in a draw (0-0).

If successful in the meeting with the Bulls, Dynamo will play Spartak or CSKA in the superfinal on May 24. Despite the importance of the Cup, the blue and white team took the derby in the championship seriously. In the 24th minute, they opened the scoring thanks to a goal by Nicolas Marichal, who won the riding match against Jerzino Nyamsi, who had come on as a substitute a few minutes earlier instead of Cesar Montes, who was injured.

Loko improved after the break. Artyom Karpukas equalized the score in the 53rd minute. Soon Dmitry Vorobyov almost put the red-greens ahead, but the ball hit the crossbar after his shot. Until the end of the game, Lokomotiv had the advantage, but could not turn it into a victory. Now Mikhail Galaktionov's team is two points ahead of Spartak.

"In my opinion, we played a good match and deserved to win, but unfortunately, we were in a hurry somewhere, we mismanaged the ball somewhere,— Lokomotiv midfielder Artem Karpukas told Izvestia. — Unfortunately, we are not lucky this spring, we lost a lot of points due to poor execution of chances. But we need to move on, we have a good chance of winning bronze medals, everything is in our hands — we need to prepare for the last two matches and win them.

Four more matches also took place in the last round. Rostov won away from Dynamo Makhachkala (2:1). Sochi, which is last, defeated Orenburg at home (3:1) and moved closer to its competitors in the fight for survival. Baltika lost to Rubin Kazan (0:1) and is now four points behind third place. Akhmat Grozny won 2-0 at home against Pari Nizhny Novgorod.