With all due respect to other RPL teams, the main match of the tour was the confrontation between “Spartak” and “Wings of the Soviets” in Samara. Moreover, the calendar compilers left it for the audience until the end of the weekend, when the standings had already practically been formed. A lot was expected from this game, but only one team lived up to the expectations.
Everything said that it would be a super match. Spartak has recently begun to transform. Head coach Guillermo Abascal finished experimenting with the squad, and the team immediately put out a series of three clean victories. In the championship, the Muscovites rose to fifth place, eight points behind the leading Krasnodar. And today there was a chance to reduce this advantage.
“Wings” is the opening of the season, the Samara team is confidently in second place. If in the last championship the Volga team barely escaped the play-offs, now Igor Osinkin’s team has made its best start since 2001. Then “Wings” finished fifth in the championship. A logical question arose: why not aim for more now?
The weather this weekend in Samara was magnificent. Almost 20 degrees Celsius hinted for fans to visit the beautiful arena. «Spartak», in turn, took a creative approach to warming up before the match — in Samara one could find screens that announced the arrival of the «red-whites».
Traditionally, there were a large number of Spartak fans. On the streets of the city one could see not only blue-white-green colors, but also red and white. The stadium's stands were more than half full before the start of the match; as a result, 23,225 people attended the game. A very, very decent result.
Gorshkov began the destruction of Spartak. Spartak entered the game with two changes in the lineup compared to the last match against Dynamo. Alexander Selikhov, who suffered a back injury in that meeting, did not come to Samara, and Alexander Maksimenko took his place in goal. Also, from the first minutes, Roman Zobnin appeared instead of Danil Prutsev. “Wings” also have two changes in the starting lineup — Alexander Soldatenkov and Fernando Costanza returned after disqualifications.
The meeting started briskly, and already in the seventh minute the Samara team opened the scoring. “Wings” perfectly came out of defense into a counterattack, Nikita Saltykov passed to Yuri Gorshkov, and he fired into the near corner of Maksimenko’s goal. In the response attack, Spartak could have equalized the score, but Quincy Promes' shot hit the post.
In the 25th minute the stadium began to roar again: Wings scored their second. The same Gorshkov received the ball on the penalty line and gracefully shot into the far corner, Maksimenko was powerless. This is clearly not the start that Spartak expected.
Is Abascal on his way out? The Muscovites had a terrible first half of the meeting. It is interesting that Abascal did not make a single substitution during the break, although the departure of at least Victor Moses suggested itself. Only in the 60th minute did Spartak make its first substitution, but at once a triple one: Anton Zinkovsky, Jesus Medina and Oleg Ryabchuk appeared on the field. Interestingly, Quincy Promes was replaced. It was the first time in a Spartak match that he left the field so early due to a coaching decision. Moses remained in the game.
“Spartak” could not come up with anything at Bogdan Ovsyannikov’s goal. And the inspired “Wings” brought the matter to defeat: Benjamin Garre scored the third goal. At the end of the meeting, the red-white fans were also upset by Alexander Sobolev's yellow card. Because of her, the striker will miss the derby with CSKA. And in the 90th minute, Vladislav Shitov, a graduate of Spartak, brought the score to an indecent level. The result is 4:0.
After the match, Abaskal tried to talk about the reasons for the defeat and at times even went into philosophical thoughts, but in the end he called the game in Samara the worst under his leadership.
«»This defeat was unexpected for us. We must give credit to the opponent, everything went well for them, they realized all the chances. This happens in football. When you fall, you need to get up and move on. If we're talking «about the score, then this is definitely my worst match in Spartak. As for the game itself, there were certain moments. Yes, the opponent punished us by converting all their chances. Now is not the time to talk, but the time to act,» noted the Spanish coach.
Krylia defeat Spartak, gain 21 points and continue the pursuit of Krasnodar. The gap from the southerners is only three points. But the Spartak management should think about Abaskal’s future. It is quite possible that during the break for national team matches we will see a new face on the coaching bridge of the Moscow club.