“Spartak” survived in St. Petersburg without Promes and Abascal. The champion disappointed?

Having gone through all the criminal details of the Quincy Promes case, fans and journalists wondered how the absence of the striker stuck in the UAE would affect the tactics of the “red-whites”. At the training camp, Guillermo Abascal played the “4-4-2” formation. The attacking pair, along with Promes, was the club's only new recruit, Costa Rican Manfred Ugalde. Against Zenit, Spartak played the classic 4-4-2, and the role of Promes was played by Alexander Sobolev.
Russian Promes, as Mikhail Ignatov is called, remained on the bench, as did the nominal team captain Georgy Dzhikia, who either has no conflict with Abascal, or has a desire to sign a contract with the “red-whites” for at least not the worst, than now, conditions. The visitors were led out with the captain's armband by Roman Zobnin, who played in the right-back position.

The second question, which I really wanted to get an answer to even before the start of the game, was related to Abaskal’s sudden departure. He flew from the training camp to St. Petersburg, held pre-match training in the arena of the Zenit Academy — and flew to Moscow to watch football at the Spartak base. What is this, an early escape from a sinking ship or a desire to shake up the team in this way?

Before the meeting there was a question about the Zenit squad. Although nowadays it is enough to start only three football players from Russia or the EAEU countries, Sergei Semak still had to choose whether to use the young Brazilian Pedro and defender Nuraly Alip, who had proven himself at the training camp, from the first minutes, or to place a pair of central defenders, Nino, who had also proven themselves at the training camp. — Strahinja Erakovic. There were simply no other options, because apart from the trio of Russians — Denis Adamov, Andrey Mostovoy, Mario Fernandez — there were no other fighters with the necessary passports at the disposal of the hosts’ coaching staff. Claudinho, who received Russian citizenship, is still considered a Brazilian. Semak gave preference to the reliability of defense.

In the first half, Zenit had the initiative, but things did not come to dangerous moments. In the fourth minute, St. Petersburg club recruit Arthur, who came to replace Malcom, hesitated at Alexander Maksimenko’s goal. The most dangerous moment came after Alexis Duarte's cut. Daniil Khlusevich cleared the ball from the goal ribbon. In the 36th minute, Arthur again had a chance to score; the goalkeeper saved the visitors. Before the break, the spectators did not see any goals scored, and only the most ardent Zenit fans could see how the hosts were superior to Spartak.
At the beginning of the second half, the teams exchanged dangerous chances. At first, Zenit's top scorer Mateo Cassierra could have scored after the ball bounced, but his shot failed. Then Ugalde broke through on the right flank and could immediately earn back part of the 15 million euros paid for him. Only his shot missed the goal. In the 70th minute it was time for substitutions. Semak made them by position. Vyacheslav Karavaev came out instead of Fernandez, who was perhaps too overbearing, and Pedro instead of Arthur. The Spartak headquarters immediately responded with their position replacement. The spectators, who set the RPL season record at this match, saw the Russian Promes: Ignatov replaced Sobolev.
Russian Premier League (RPL) March 02, 2024 • starts at 19:30 CompletedZenitRussia0 : 0Spartak MoscowRussia

Semak very often practices substitutions at the end of the match . So I released Ilzat Akhmetov and Ivan Sergeev against Spartak. There was only nothing left to play until the end of regular time, and Karasev added only four minutes. The head coach of Zenit was nervous and received a yellow card from Karasev. The Spartak players calmly defended themselves, and in the end they could even score the winning goal. In the fourth minute of added time, after Ignatov’s shot, the ball went just centimeters from the post.