Exactly in the top ten: Zenit striker deprived Spartak of the trophy

Zenit defeated Spartak in the match for the Russian Super Cup 2026 — 1:1 (penalty shootout 4:2). Christopher Martins opened the scoring in the 25th minute, finishing the ball into the goal after a shot by Pablo Solari. At the end of regular time, the blue-white-blues equalized the score with a penalty kick awarded after the ball hit Alexander Djiku's hand. The 11-meter shot was scored by Alexander Sobolev. Zenit's players turned out to be more accurate in the penalty shootout — 4:2. The club from St. Petersburg won the Russian Super Cup for the tenth time in its history, a tournament record.

Zenit defeated Spartak in a penalty shootout

Of course, everyone wants to start the new season on a positive note — with a trophy already won. Especially if you manage to outperform your competitor in the upcoming fight for the championship title, exposing his vulnerabilities. But it's not worth giving the Super Bowl any special significance, much less drawing far-reaching conclusions. Two years ago, Zenit was so good in Volgograd that many, impressed by the blue-white-blue team and personally by Maxim Glushenkov, did not understand how to compete with such a team of Sergey Semak. Krasnodar, on the other hand, seemed soft — only 10 months later, champion champagne was drunk in the south of Russia.

It's the same with the signs that the Super Bowl winner won't win the championship later. CSKA and Zenit have successfully proved the opposite. So the ideal option is to treat the meeting of the champion and the Cup winner as a separate story and a celebration of football leading up to the new season. Of course, with the opportunity to replenish the club museum, which, after the hegemony of Oleg Romantsev's time, Spartak received very few trophy exhibits.

The championship and the Super Cup with Massimo Carrera, as well as two cup triumphs with Paolo Vanoli and Juan Carlos Carcedo. It is more than modest against the background of the achievements of the representatives of St. Petersburg.

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A match without rookies and forwards

The first thing that caught my eye before the start of the game in Nizhny Novgorod was the lack of newcomers in the starting line—up. Parada, who had just moved to the Russian capital, as well as new Petersburgers Andrade and Felipe Augusto started the game on the bench. All the faces on the field are familiar. And the Spartak scheme without a nominal striker was not surprising. Carcedo played like this against Zenit in March in the RPL (0:2), and in the final of the Path of the Regions Cup tournament. Formally, with this arrangement, Barko acts above the rest, who is the first to meet the opponent in pressure at the moment of leaving the defense.

But, of course, when going on the attack, the Argentine habitually conducted the game, while Marquinhos, Solari or Martins could situationally be in the center of the penalty area. There was a certain unpredictability in this, which brought the result. The scoring attack began with the fact that Martins won the single combat in the center of the field. And he also sent the ball into the net, managing to finish it off after Adamov seemed to save the champions following a combination of Solari and Marquinhos.

In Carcedo's third match against Zenit, the red and white finally scored, and from the point of view of the development of events, everything was logical. Spartak was faster, controlled the ball better and pressed the opponent with pressure. However, the end of the first half, when the blue-white-blues pinned the Muscovites to the penalty area, showed that the real fight was still ahead.

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Immediately after the break, Zenit reformed, swapping Drkusic for midfielder John John. And pretty quickly, Maksimenko finally got into the game in earnest, stopping Glushenkov's shot into the near corner. But while Andrade and Felipe Augusto were waiting for a substitute on the sideline, Solari almost made it to the far post to Barco's canopy, and then he cut out a pass to Martins, who just missed the ball. Spartak did not roll back, without giving the initiative to the opponent, who refreshed the flanks and switched to a two-striker scheme.

The nominal hosts had a chance at the standard, but Glushenkov's blow hit the "wall". In turn, in the opposite half of the field, Zobnin's lunge ended with Marquinhos' miss from the rebound, and Pedro did a great job in defense, preventing Solari from running to the goal.

But it was not as acute as in the situation with Wendell's submission to Augusto. The rookie, who regularly scored in test matches, headed the ball over the target. Marquinhos only responded by kneading Adamov, attacking from the center of the penalty area. A little later, VAR spent a long time analyzing the episode with Gustavo Mantuan's fall in the Muscovite penalty area and saw no reason to award a penalty.

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Jiku, who missed the 2026 World Cup due to injury and proved himself at the training camps of Prut and Ugalde, came to the end at Spartak. The red and white added reliability to the game, but on the other hand, they kept Zenit in suspense. Adamov saved the intrigue when Zobnin created the moment for Ugalde. Nevertheless, the bulk of the blue-white-blues, who sent Diveev on the attack, brought a penalty: after the replay, the referee saw how Djiku played with his hand in the fight with Sobolev. The former Spartak player scored from the spot and provoked a massive brawl with his gestures towards the red and white fan sector.

The fate of the trophy was decided in a series of 11-meter shots, which Carcedo could no longer release the cup hero Anointed. And they were beaten — by a voluntary decision and without a draw — into the goal in front of the Zenit sector. Umyarov made the first misfire there.: the ball flew off the goalkeeper's foot into the crossbar. Mostovoy hit the post in response, but Dmitriev did not beat Adamov either. And the tenth Super Cup was brought to Zenit by Sobolev's blow.

— Spartak did everything in the game, the team did not allow Zenit to create anything, — Andrei Yeshchenko, the champion of Russia in the red and white team, told Izvestia. — The Petersburgers were hoping only for a bulk and a penalty. An offensive 11-meter shot was delivered in the last minutes. But this is football. It was 50-50 in the series. Adamov played well, pulled off three shots, I think, the best player of the match. It's a shame that this happened, because Spartak led this game and did not allow the opponent to create chances.

Spartak lost in the decisive match for the fifth time — the red and white won the trophy once in 2017.