The fourth round of the RPL Russian Cup started on Tuesday. «Krasnodar» opened the day with a match against «Dynamo», «Spartak» went to Nizhny Novgorod, and «Baltika» hosted «Wings of the Soviets».
All matches started during working hours. The meeting in Krasnodar started at 15:00, in Kaliningrad – at 16:15, in Nizhny Novgorod – at 17:15 local time. This factor, as expected, had a strong impact on attendance. Most of all — in Krasnodar. At the start of the meeting, one of the busiest stadiums in Russia had an unusually large number of empty seats. The situation improved somewhat after the match break.
The fact is that according to UEFA rules, national federations and broadcasters are obliged to clear the calendar and television broadcasts from domestic matches on the days of European Cups. Because of this, it is necessary to shift the Russian Cup games to an earlier time. “UEFA has set a condition that games must end at least 15 minutes before the start of European Cup matches,” said Maxim Mitrofanov, Secretary General of the Russian Football Union, last week.
To attract fans to stadiums, clubs went to extreme measures: several days in advance Before the match, Krasnodar and Nizhny Novgorod issued statements asking employers to let people go to football.
On the day of the match, several dozen Spartak fans arrived in Nizhny Novgorod on the morning “Swallow”. However, it was difficult to find any club colors in the city center before the game. Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street — the local Arbat — was filled with students, schoolchildren, street workers — anyone, but not fans. Only near the Chkalov Stairs did we manage to meet a small group of “red-whites”.
Closer to the start of the match, fans began to approach the stadium. There were more and more red and white flowers on Strelka. In the end, the inconvenient start time for the game did not prevent decent attendance — some still managed to leave work early. The match was eventually attended by just over 32 thousand people.
Spartak head coach Guillermo Abascal has fielded a semi-reserve squad. There was only one intrigue around the team: whether Ruslan Litvinov came to the game. A couple of days before this, there was a skirmish in the media between the head coach of the “red-whites” Guillermo Abascal and the coach of the Russian national team Valery Karpin. Abascal stated that he asked not to use Litvinov in the friendly match against Qatar. But the footballer played the entire match and, according to the Spanish specialist, aggravated a previously received injury. Karpin, in turn, said that the team headquarters has correspondence with Spartak doctors, and Abaskal is misleading everyone.
It turned out that Spartak will hold the meeting without Ruslan: the team press attaché Dmitry Zelenov said that The 22-year-old football player remained in Moscow, he continues to recover from his injury. Also, Roman Zobnin did not arrive in Nizhny Novgorod due to injury, and Alexander Selikhov missed the game as part of the rotation.
The meeting did not start as brightly as the fans would have liked. The first half turned out to be bland, but one of the few dangerous moments ended with a goal: in the 27th minute, Spartak defender Leon Klassen, joining the attack, shot into the near upper corner of Vitaly Botnar's goal.
The second half of the match started with a return Nizhny Novgorod's goal: Alexander Troshechkin caught the rebound off the post and hit Alexander Maksimenko's goal. However, the main referee of the match, Evgeniy Bulanov, using a video replay, saw Edgar Sevikyan's foul before scoring — the ball was not counted. “Nizhny” continued to attack, but was unable to open the gates of the “red-whites”. Towards the end of the match, Spartak scored twice more — Christopher Martins and Quincy Promes scored.
The result of the match was a defeat with not the best play from the winners. The Nizhny Novgorod team could not take revenge after a disappointing defeat in Moscow with a score of 4:5. The “red-whites” scored 12 points and advanced to the playoffs of the Russian Cup ahead of schedule from first place in the group.