Laziness of the start: the new RPL season began without surprises

The first round of the Russian Football Championship was not full of vivid face-to-face confrontations between top teams, but two matches nevertheless turned out to be quite combative. The reigning RPL bronze medalist Lokomotiv missed out on a 1-1 victory over Akhmat Grozny at home. And CSKA managed to win a strong—willed victory over the main sensation of the previous draw, Baltika Kaliningrad (2:1).

CSKA — Baltika

The new RPL season started with this game on July 24. The teams that unexpectedly turned out to be neighbors in the standings in the spring met, completing the top six of the championship. This was a failure for CSKA, given that the army team had won the bronze medals a year earlier, and after two thirds of the last national championship, they were fighting for gold.

But the Army team completely failed the spring part of the championship, which led to the resignation of their head coach Fabio Celestini before the end of the season. He was replaced by a young specialist from the club system, Dmitry Igdisamov, who previously led the CSKA youth teams for several years, and then worked at the head of the youth team. Under him, the current young stars of the club in the person of Matvey Kislyak, Kirill Glebov and Matvey Lukin have grown up to the main team.

For Baltika, the final sixth place was a success even against the background of the unsuccessful spring part of the season. The Kaliningrad team has not won a single match in the last eight rounds. This prevented the club from competing for medals, although for most of the championship it claimed it. Nevertheless, the sixth place was the best result in the history of Baltika.

Given the limited budget and the fact that Kaliningrad returned from the First League just a year ago, their head coach Andrei Talalaev is deservedly considered by many to be the best specialist of the RPL last season. Baltika started the new championship with a quick goal 30 seconds after the opening whistle — Chinonso Offor scored.

It seemed that the summer preseason was continuing for CSKA, in which the Army team did not win a single friendly match. But the red and blue quickly recovered and, despite two uncounted goals against Baltika, led by halftime thanks to an auto-goal by Eduardo Anderson and a successful one-on-one performance by Glebov.

After the break, the visitors improved and had a good chance to equalize, but now it was their turn to experience the negative emotions of two uncounted goals. And towards the end of the meeting, when Baltika went to recoup with too much force, CSKA had a lot of free zones. And they almost took advantage of it, creating several extremely dangerous moments.

But until the last seconds, the intrigue in the match was preserved by the goalkeeper of Baltika Maxim Borisko, who, according to a number of media reports, is interested in CSKA, who lost his main goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev due to injury at the beginning of the season. Perhaps, in front of the army public, Borisko finally discouraged doubts about the expediency of his transfer. But his team couldn't take advantage of the 26-year-old goalkeeper's saves and lost 1-2.

— Of course, we are unhappy with the result, we don't want to lose to anyone, — Ravil Izmailov, CEO of Baltika, told Izvestia. — Nevertheless, in terms of the content of the game, the guys looked good and created a lot of chances. In my opinion, a draw would be a more logical result, but football is notoriously unpredictable. How will we resolve the issue of replacing Borisko if he leaves? We are considering different options. Of course, we are looking for outside reinforcement, but it is possible that we will give chances to the guys who are inside the team. We have second and third goalkeepers who look very good in training. They prepare and train well. And they can always become the main ones.

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Lokomotiv — Akhmat

After winning the bronze medals of the last championship, Lokomotiv lost its key striker — Dmitry Vorobyov was sold to Krasnodar on the eve of the start of the season. Given the injury to another forward, Nikolai Komlichenko, the Railwaymen had little choice in attack.

As a result, for the first round, the head coach of the team, Mikhail Galaktionov, put Alexander Rudenko at the forefront of the attack, and Vadim Rakov under him. It was noticeable that this was not working very well so far — Loko created very few chances in the attack at the Akhmat gate.

But at the same time, he could have won thanks to a quick goal by Zelimkhan Bakayev, who interrupted Turpal-Ali Ibishev's pass in the wrong half of the field and went one-on-one with the goalkeeper of the guests, Giorgi Shelia, sending the ball into his goal. As the match progressed, Akhmat gained more and more game advantage and became more and more active closer to the other's goal.

Lokomotiv tried to hedge itself by strengthening its defense. In the 82nd minute, the experienced Georgy Dzhikiya came on as a substitute, and the hosts switched to playing three central defenders. But a minute later they missed after a shot from outside the penalty area performed by Erald Maksuti. The Grozny team managed to achieve an important away draw at the start.

"We perceive this result negatively," Akhmat defender Turpal-Ali Ibishev told Izvestia. — We had two or three chances when we could have scored more goals. But we didn't realize them and played a draw. But in my opinion, we should have won the game.

There were also six more matches in the last round. Spartak won the Moscow derby against the RPL debutant Rodina (3:0), the reigning champion Zenit defeated Tolyatti Akron (5:0), Dynamo Moscow drew at home with Samara Krylia Sovetov (0:0), who returned after a one-year break in Voronezh Fakel lost to Dynamo Makhachkala (1:2) on their own field, Krasnodar, the silver medalist of the last championship, won a strong-willed victory away from Rubin Kazan (3:1), Orenburg, in the minority, managed to recoup and defeat Rostov (2:1).