Translated material
Scottish bagpipes
Harry O'Connor's goal decided the fate of the protracted Russian Cup final
One of the most famous active Russian coaches, Anatoly Byshovets, won his first serious trophy since 1988, when he headed the USSR Olympic team. Almost two decades later, his Lokomotiv, beating Moscow 1:0 in extra time, won the 2007 Russian Cup.This Cup became the seventh in the railway workers' collection - Lokomotiv won tournaments twice during the USSR (1936, 1957) and took Russian trophies four times (1996, 1997, 2000, 2001) - and the club's first success since Yuri Semin resigned from the post of head coach. The bronze medals that Loko won with other mentors were perceived rather as failures.
“Moscow” had the first chance in its short history to win a serious trophy. The club talked about the Russian Cup final as the most important match in the entire existence of the club. And the tension that the players and head coach experienced was not even felt during the warm-up that the “citizens” did before the match.
The audience felt it too. It was decided to hold the final in Luzhniki - Moscow did not want to play in Cherkizovo, so as not to give an unnecessary advantage to Lokomotiv, and the option with the Dynamo arena in Petrovsky Park was no longer available. So the decisive match of the Russian Cup took place at the stadium where Lokomotiv won the USSR Cup 50 years ago.
The organizers of the match promised that at least 50 thousand spectators would gather at the game between the two most unpopular Moscow Premier League teams. The clubs bought the tickets themselves and distributed them free of charge to fans. As a result, the teams actually managed to fill the Luzhniki stands by half. Due to a clever decision to “spread” the spectator audience in an even layer across all the stands, the bowl of the Olympic arena looked completely packed to capacity. And only after looking closely, one could notice that the spectators were seated across a row or across a chair.
But the Moscow players, with the referee’s starting whistle, had no time to watch the stands. Leonid Slutsky's team, afraid of making a mistake in the first minutes, immediately pressed against their goal. And then I could have missed it. Already in the first quarter of an hour, the ball hit the City goal net twice, both times the goals were canceled due to offsides. It is unlikely that the Loko players could blame the referees for this. Almost every player in the "railroad" attack had the opportunity to score. Sychev could have scored a hat-trick even before the break. Moscow goalkeeper Yuri Zhevnov somehow miraculously managed to save his goal. When he couldn’t help either, the Lokomotiv players inexplicably directed the ball past the goal from the most lethal positions.
The attraction of unprecedented generosity continued after the break. Moreover, Moscow football players began to take part in it. For example, Bracamonte could well have punished Yakupovic for a blunder when the “railroad” goalkeeper, knocking the ball out, hit the Argentine in the chest.
But the fewer minutes remained until the end of the second half, the more persistent Lokomotiv was at the opposing goal. Again Sychev failed to hit the goal, and his next shot was barely parried by Zhevnov. It seemed that a goal was only a matter of time. It turned out to be extra time. But in order to score the much-needed goal, the railway workers managed to miss a couple of chances. In the end, when neither team had any strength left, Sychev, picking up the ball in the center of the field, dragged it along the flank into the penalty area and crossed along the goal. Scottish forward Harry O'Connor completed the pass - 1:0. “Moscow” failed to reach the penalty spot for 15 minutes.
“Football is the fairest sport. We were weaker today and lost to stronger ones,” Moscow head coach Leonid Slutsky admitted after the match. Perhaps his words did not only apply to this particular match. Still, Lokomotiv’s road to the final, where it met the capital’s Dynamo and Spartak, was more difficult than Moscow’s. And in the decisive match, Anatoly Byshovets’ team proved its superiority in a head-to-head match.
Russian Cup . Final. "Lokomotiv" - "Moscow" - 1:0 (O'Connor 105) .