Translated material
Cheap and cheerful
Dynamo started the season with a victory
Several Russian Premier League clubs opened the season yesterday with matches of the 1/8 Russian Cup. Including the richest - St. Petersburg Zenit and one of the most modest today - Moscow Dynamo. Both started the year with victories. The St. Petersburg team beat Saturn - 1:0, the Muscovites unexpectedly easily dealt with Tom - 2:0, without scoring a penalty.The capital's Dynamo conducted the most modest transfer campaign among all Premier League clubs. The club, having rented out and sold several players from last year's main squad (Smertin, Derlei, Romaschenko, Jean Narde, Jorge Luis left the team) and thoroughly unloaded the salary sheet, acquired several inexpensive players, and the management set the team the task of being in the top ten for the season in the final championship table. So Dynamo fans expected the opening match with some apprehension, especially since two main defenders Kolodin and Fernandez could not take part in it due to disqualification. As it turned out, in vain. The current “Dynamo” was strikingly different from last year’s, and above all in the desire to fight.
Despite all the personnel problems, Andrei Kobelev's team did not allow the opponent to create particularly dangerous moments at their goal. Against others, Dynamo acted quite sharply and with a decent percentage of conversions. The team's first goal this year was scored by the Portuguese Danny. He, having received a pass from Semshov, found himself eye to eye with the Siberian goalkeeper and managed to push the ball into the net under him.
Danny could have scored a second time, but in the middle of the second half he did not convert the penalty awarded for demolishing Pimenov. However, Tom failed to maintain the minimum score. Another attack involving Semshov, as well as Kirill Kombarov and Pimenov, who closed it, turned out to be scoring - 2:0.
But from Zenit, on the contrary, they expected an impressive start. It seemed that the team, which spent almost $40 million on the acquisition of four players in the winter, should have a bright opening match. Only the beginning was impressive: already in the second minute of the match, Turkish forward Tekke opened the scoring. But there was no continuation. “Saturn”, which also did not waste time in the winter and was able to strengthen itself by inviting Andrei Karyaka, Dmitry Kirichenko and Gogita Gogua, among others, calmly survived the failure and managed to dry up the game and not allow the opponent to “scatter”. So the teams spent the remaining time in a relatively equal fight without any particularly scoring chances, and Zenit had to be content with a modest victory, which in no way guarantees the St. Petersburg team advancement in the tournament bracket.
Russian Cup. 1/8 finals. First matches . "Torpedo" -- "Dynamo" Br -- 0:1 -- Malin 60, "Dynamo" M -- "Tom" -- 2:0 -- Danni 28, Pimenov 81, "Zenit" -- "Saturn" - - 1:0 - Tekke 2, Rostov - Rubin - 3:1 - Noboa 15 (own goal), Dantsev 35, Bochkov 66 - Gabriel 17 . Return match. "Amkar" - "Moscow" - 3:2 (first match 0:3) - Savin 19, 28 - Semak 16, Bracamonte 25, Barrientos 68.