Russian Football Cup

Russian Cup favorites CSKA and Lokomotiv were eliminated from the competition, and the latter lost the chance to play in European competition in the fall. The team that wins the tournament will go there: “Terek”, “Torpedo-Metallurg”, “Shinnik” or “Wings of the Soviets”.
The first official semi-finalist of the Russian Cup for the first time in its history was “Terek” from Grozny, which in Pyatigorsk managed to win back two goals conceded a week ago in Volgograd. The decisive goal was scored in the 91st minute against Rotor by former Russian national team player Andrei Fedkov: after crossing from the flank, he sent the ball into the bottom corner with a cannon shot from the line of the penalty area.
In fact, Torpedo-Metallurg should be recognized as the first semi-finalist: the away victory a week ago - 3:0 - over Rostov left no doubt about the overall result of the quarter-finals - the players of both teams just had to run 90 minutes around the field, not paying attention to the scoreboard.
The same three goals had to be won back against Shinnik at home by Lokomotiv Moscow, for which winning the Cup remained the only chance to take part in European tournaments in the fall. Remembering the very recent home victories over Shinnik (6:1 in the fall and 3:0 in the first round of this championship), the task seemed difficult, but had a chance to be successfully solved, but the first half did not answer the question of how Lokomotiv “Is going to score at least three goals. The opponent, of course, played defense as strictly as he could, but in the middle of the half, having made sure that Lokomotiv rarely made more than two or three accurate passes in a row, they even allowed themselves to play on the nerves of Ruslan Nigmatullin, who unexpectedly took his place in the goal, several times. Apart from a couple of shots by Dmitry Khokhlov and Ruslan Pimenov, there would have been nothing to remember in the first half if not for a completely unnecessary foul by Sergei Shtanyuk on the same Pimenov in his own penalty area. He gave Lokomotiv a chance. But still, the Loko coaching staff was dissatisfied, and during the break Vladimir Eshtrekov (Yuri Semin was disqualified for this game) made two changes at once.
Immediately everyone saw another “Lokomotiv”, which began to tear up “Shinnik”, as in the last two matches of the Russian championship. After a soft pass, Khokhlov went one on one with the goalkeeper and hit the goal. Sergei Gurenko joined the next sweeping attack of the hosts, who shot into the Shinnik goal from ten meters without interference. The score became 3:0, Lokomotiv achieved equality on aggregate, but then Alexander Shirko deceived two defenders and scored an excellent goal. And again Lokomotiv was thrown back to the start of the second half - again it had to score two goals.
In the 72nd minute, Dmitry Sychev headed the ball into the goal after a diagonal cross, and the intrigue of the match reached its climax. However, Shinnik survived the required 20 minutes and reached the semi-finals.
CSKA had a simpler task - to win at home against Krylya Sovetov with a score of 1:0. Almost all the recently acquired stars were in the starting lineup for the army: defender Oscar Ferreira, midfielder Daniel Carvalho, striker Ivica Olic. The place in goal was taken by Igor Akinfeev, who served a five-match disqualification for punching Samara's Ognjen Koroman in a championship match. Koroman himself, who hit the then lying Akinfeev with the ball, stayed on the field for a quarter of an hour, after which he was injured in the collision.
The match began with Samara's Alexander Anyukov hitting the post for the third time in this confrontation (counting the first game). The army team did not have similar chances to score in the first half, although once, thanks to the efforts of mainly Olic, CSKA almost pushed the ball into the goal. It gradually became clear that it would be problematic for the army team to score even one goal, and after Sergei Vinogradov opened up for a diagonal pass and hit Akinfeev’s goal, CSKA looked completely doomed. He only has a shot on the post from Dmitry Kirichenko.
ANDREY Kommersant-TARASOV

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 73 dated April 22, 2004, p. 24

The favorites were awarded the cup