Zenit beat the Khimki and retained the second place in the RPL

“Zenith” after the 25th round remained the closest pursuer of the Krasnodar leading in the Russian championship. But the home victory over the “Khimki” who were in the basement and experiencing a deep financial crisis went to him with enormous labor. Petersburgers won with a score of 1-0 thanks to the goal clogged in the first half of Lusiano Gondu. CSKA fell out of the top three, playing at a draw at a draw-1: 1-with “wings of the Soviets”, another team fighting for survival in the elite.

Many, watching the St. Petersburg game, probably wanted to look for echoes of what is happening with Khimki in it-the whole dramatic story with salary debts, with the strike of the Russian Premier League (RPL) in the club of external management for several days, with the flight of the Franca Artista trainer. But the search was forced to state: on a completely poor team, which with difficulty, in order not to spoil the reputation of the championship, they forced him to leave on the field, so to speak, the number, the Khimchanes still did not look like. Moreover, for the first time in this match, it properly rumbled at the Zenit gate: the standard, in appearance harmless, taxied to such a cunning rebound of the ball from the lawn that the goalkeeper Evgeny Latvonka had absolutely no chance to calculate it. But everything for Zenit cost. The ball, already ready to dive into the upper corner, only licked the cross and went beyond the field.

Then, however, it rumbled almost all the time at the gates of an outsider. And in the spotlight all the time was Maxim Glushenkov, who in the spring, sparkling with different shades of talent, blossomed like a magnificent flowerbed. He was beautiful in the episode when he scattered the Finters of the Himok defenders on the right and performed a discount on the slaughterhouse, Luis Enrique. Anton Zabolotny, who ran to the fire in his penalty area and lay down under the ball, helped the guests, as courageous hockey defenders lie under the puck.

Glushenkov was magnificent, and when, having twisted himself from a rather difficult situation, he managed to break through the goal, again running into the Khimki block. But this time he did not help: Ricocheus conveniently lay on the leg of Luisiano Honda, and he very cool laid the case. Zenit led, but Khimki, oddly enough, did not break.

Magomed Adievappointed to the mentor, instead of Frank Arthi, was probably delighted with fighting qualities and the discipline of the players he got. In the second half, the Khimchans showed how to play against the opponent if he constantly controls the ball in order to minimize the use of such control: they met the Zenitites carefully, the most dangerous zones were overlapped in time.

And the picture at the end of the match looked completely surreal.

The “Khimki” who wiped the other people’s pressure for a couple of minutes at Zenit was as tight as few of the much more powerful clubs: 0: 1, honorable, given the context, the result, they clearly did not suit them.

In the compensated time, the Latvian, before introducing the ball into the game, deliberately thoroughly, slowly, pulled out the leggings. It seems that the Zenitites decided that in such a meeting it was not a sin to pull – victory is more important than the image. They won it and saved the status of the closest pursuer on the right line of the Krasnodar table. “Zenith” separates two points from the Krasnodar.

In three behind him, only Spartak is coming. CSKA, who was on a par with the Spartaks, allowed an outrage in a home match with the “Wings of the Soviets” on Sunday, and the Hymik’s neighbors in the table. In it, a very dashing second followed in it. The army team stepped forward thanks to the blue seconds, but enjoyed the advantage of only a couple of minutes – until the moment in which Willian Rosha shot down on the field of Vladislav Shitov on the penalty line. VAR studied the episode, and the referee Pavel Kukoyan appointed the penalty implemented by Ivan Sergeyev. In a draw “wings” clung with an iron grip.

On Sunday, the pursuing quartet of leaders on Sunday coped with Rubin: 3: 1, convincingly, on the game – rather on a thin one. In the middle of the first half, the rivals exchanged goals, and after this exchange, the Dynamo suffered for a long time, trying to find a way to step forward again. They coped with the task when, in the second half, Dmitry Skopintsev was shots, although he touched the Kazan leg, reached the site directly opposite the gate, into which Yaroslav Gladyshev, who became the author of the double, flew into.

But the intrigue was not going to die. At the end of the match, Rubin lost his best striker Mirlind Daku: Sfolly, he waved his hand at the arbiter of Sergei Cheban and earned a second yellow card.

However, remaining in the minority, the Kazan at a compensated time almost restored balance. Valentin Wada shot the Dynamo goalkeeper Andrei Lunev and hit the rack. And the Dynamo, who were dumbfounded with great trouble, rushed into a counterattack, completed by Bitella, retaining not too much to forget about the struggle for the medal, a lag from Spartak in four points.

Alexey Prepokhov