Ural Yekaterinburg won a strong-willed victory on its field over Moscow «Spartak» in the fourth round match of the Russian Premier League (RPL).
The meeting, attended by 19,385 spectators, ended with a score of 3:2 in favor of the hosts. Thanks to this result, the Urals took first place in the standings at least before the Orenburg-Krasnodar match.
Spartak missed the chance for the first time in history to win four consecutive victories at the start of the season in the RPL. Prior to this, the Red-Whites started with three championship victories in the 2012/13 and 2013/14 seasons. Then the winning streak was interrupted by defeat and a draw, respectively.
Spartak arrived in Yekaterinburg on the eve of the match without goalkeeper Alexander Selikhov and striker Shamar Nicholson. The first continues to recover from injury, and the second is gaining shape and working on an individual program. In addition to them, at this stage, the Red-Whites cannot count on defender Tomas Tavares, who is undergoing rehabilitation in Portugal after an operation due to an injury to the Crosses.
Spartacists were met by several fans when checking into the hotel. But already on the day of the match, there were much more fans of the “red-whites” in the city. Most of the fans of «Spartak» was located outside the gates above the sectors of active support of the «Ural», and the rest dispersed in the central stands.
The match against Ural was the first in the RPL for Spartak for goalkeeper Ilya Svinov, who conceded four goals from Nizhny Novgorod three days earlier in the Russian Cup. Then the “red-whites” won a difficult victory with a score of 5:4 thanks to a goal by Quincy Promes in the 89th minute of the meeting. In the absence of Selikhov, Alexander Maksimenko was the main goalkeeper of Muscovites, but due to a viral infection, he was left without match practice for the second match in a row. wp-content/uploads/2023/08/373c32d912edee6c74ac9cdd1d38a565.png» />UralRussia3 : 2 >Spartak MoscowRussia
45' • Daniel Mishkic90' • Andrey Egorychev90' • Eric Bikfalvi (Guilherme Shettin)
53' • Theo Bongonda (Quincy Promes)
81' • Alexander Sobolev (Christopher Martins)
Watch all goals
The game in Yekaterinburg was the debut in the RPL for the Moldovan defender Oleg Ryabchuk, who moved to Spartak from the Greek Olympiacos. Before that, he managed to spend a little more than 30 minutes in the cup meeting with Nizhny Novgorod. The rest of the Muscovites was optimal. «Ural», which took 4th place after three rounds, could not count on a large group of injured — the defenders Artem Mamin and Yegor Filippenko, midfielders Yuri Gazinsky and Rai Vlut were unavailable for the head coach of the Urals Viktor Goncharenko. In addition, 33-year-old midfielder Oleg Shatov suspended his football career due to the fact that a chronic injury does not allow him to return to the field. He started training for a coaching license.
The match between Ural and Spartak preceded the festival week dedicated to the 300th anniversary of Yekaterinburg. On this occasion, the players took to the field in special T-shirts dedicated to the anniversary of the city. Such a celebratory occasion clearly affected the motivation of the “Urals” – the starting segment was left for the home team. In the 12th minute, Svinov saved a penalty shot by Daniel Mishkic. After that, the goalkeeper of «Spartak» rescued his teammates several more times, but at the close of the first half he could not cope with the blow of the same Mishkic.
«Spartak» in the course of the first half leveled the game a little, but they managed to level the score only after the break — the fourth goal of the season was scored by the newcomer «red-white» Theo Bongonda. Despite the missed goal, Ural continued to play to win and created several more dangerous chances, the most obvious of which was missed by striker Guilherme Shettine in the 78th minute, who hit the post from the goalkeeper's line without resistance.
The last ten minutes turned out to be extremely eventful — in the 81st minute, Spartak took the lead after a shot with a small rebound from Italo Alexander Sobolev. “Ural” continued to put pressure on the defense of the Muscovites – it paid off in the 90th minute. The first on the rebound after a free kick was Alexander Egorychev. Svinov could not cope with this blow — 2:2. Ekaterinburg put the squeeze on the red-and-whites in stoppage time for the second half — Eric Bikfalvi, who recovered from injury, brought victory to Ural.