After Zenit’s victory in Krasnodar, intrigue in the championship the race, as many thought, was dead. The St. Petersburg team was four points ahead of their closest competitors, and Dynamo, which lost in that round in Yekaterinburg, was nine points behind.
Who would have thought that by May 11 everything would change!
After the Zenit – CSKA match, the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, walked past the journalists who were in the mixed zone into the hosts' locker room. “A simple fan of Zenit, as he and the responsible persons in the club characterize himself. It was useless to extract details of the conversation that took place in the locker room from the head coach of the St. Petersburg team Sergei Semak at the post-match press conference.
Russian Premier League (RPL) May 11 2024 • starts at 19:00Completed
ZenitRussia0 : 1
CSKARussia
58' • Fedor Chalov (P)
Powerful psychological move of the leadership ” Zenit, which offered Semak to extend his contract until 2030 after two defeats in a row, did not work. Zenit continues to lose points and now not only has no room for error, but is also forced to hope for help from Krylia Sovetov and Krasnodar. At the same time, many are looking forward to another Zenit misfire.
““They don’t like the strong,” Semak commented on the situation after the match with CSKA. “Although all this excitement does not affect the team. Our legionnaires don’t read Russian newspapers, they don’t listen to the comments of television experts.”
Only did the faithful do the same at Zenit? steps to win the sympathy of fans from other cities? What, for example, prevented the club from calling not to punish Rubin footballer Ruslan Bezrukov?
One can, of course, agree with the General Director of the RFU, Maxim Mitrofanov, who emphasized the inadmissibility of jokes on the topic of murder. Only Bezrukov and his Rubin partners did not kill, but rather resurrected the intrigue in the championship race. Okay, I've revived it. One of the Russian legionnaires, who played in one of the European championships in the 90s, both then and now included in the top 5, said that local newspapers almost openly wrote about how rivals in the fight for the championship were in the last rounds stimulated rivals. And no one considered it a financial impact on the sporting event. They paid not for passing games, but for winning!
In 2004, Zenit was in the lead for a long time, and before the penultimate round it was in third place, but sensationally lost at home to the unmotivated Moscow. There was such a club in the capital back then. In the mixed zone, Moscow midfielder Alexei Meleshin, the father of the current Spartak player playing on loan in Minsk, honestly admitted: Zenit’s competitors stimulated him. What began then! The head coach of the St. Petersburg team, Vlastimil Petrzhela, publicly declared: “Zenit” will never become a champion!” And the head of the capital’s club, Yuri Belous, tactfully corrected his player. They say that it was the management of “Moscow” who established increased bonuses.
Today, even asking questions on this topic to the coaches and players of the teams that defeated Zenit is unethical. Journalists, of course, will not be called on the carpet, but persons falling under the jurisdiction of the RFU face punishment. So CSKA head coach Vladimir Fedotov simply smiled at the post-match press conference and said that there is no need to specially tune anyone to Zenit.
After five seasons in which Semak’s team proved its superiority over its competitors, Zenit stopped being afraid. They learned to play with him. The tactics are simple: one of the opponents sets up a “bus”, someone – a “bus depot” of an average Russian regional center, hoping for luck in the counterattack. There can always be a stray ball after a set piece, or Zenit itself will give an unnecessary penalty, as was the case in the last two matches. It’s hard to even remember who last played open football against Semak’s team. In the Champions League, perhaps. Moreover, “Orenburg”, which received eight unanswered goals.
Semak assures that his players take to the field motivated. But here’s the problem: they can’t score! The army defenders gave Wendel such a chance in the first half, but Ivan Oblyakov acted as goalkeeper. And there were also two powerful shots at the “nine”, which were parried by Vyacheslav Torop. It’s not enough, you agree, to talk about an unconditional advantage in a match with an unmotivated CSKA. After Malcom's departure, there is no leader in the team who can decide the fate of the match through individual skill.
< br>It seems that numerous Zenit foreign players are downright bored in the RPL without European competition. They work out their considerable contracts (they try, you can’t say anything), but they themselves don’t get pleasure, and they don’t bring it to the fans. The vector of development of the club, outlined by its management, headed by “ordinary fan” Alexei Miller, does not justify itself. It is not clear why it is necessary to develop the Brazilian talents of Pedro and Renan by sending Danila Kozlov on loan to Baltika.
He's playing football right now. And it is still unknown how things would have ended for Dynamo if he had been on the field in Kaliningrad.
Russian Premier League (RPL)May 11, 2024 • starts at 21:30Finished
BaltikaRussia2 : 3
Dynamo MoscowRussia
32' • Angelo Henriques (Dmitry Rybchinsky)
68' • Kirill Kaplenko (Vitaly Lisakovich)
03' • Konstantin Tyukavin (Mumi Ngamalyo)
90' • Roberto Fernandez (Daniil Fomin)
90' • Mumi Ngamalyo (Konstantin Tyukavin)
View all goals
The Blue and Whites, losing 1:2 by the fourth minute of added time, managed not only to achieve a draw, which would put them in the lead, but also to win. Dynamo with four points in the last two rounds guarantees the championship, taking into account the advantage in head-to-head matches with Zenit. It seems that Krasnodar, which lost its game for results with the castling on the coaching bridge and never found a game that pleases the club boss, is falling out of the championship race. Only in this case, taking on the Muscovites in the last round, can he become the arbiter of destinies in the fight for “gold”.
* * *Sports psychologist Vadim Gushchin made an interesting judgment before the crazy 28th round:
“
" Dynamo, unlike Krasnodar, has a clear chance of becoming a champion. Muscovites do not depend on the emotions of the owner, but follow the path of creating an interesting product in the long term.
And now they have a chance to become champions for the first time since the spring championship of 1976.
The author’s opinion may not coincide with the editorial position.
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