The match in Grozny was interrupted due to a power outage

In the central match of the 19th round, championship leader CSKA lost to its main pursuer Zenit: the St. Petersburgers gained the upper hand thanks to an impeccable defensive game and two goals scored in the second half with an interval of one minute - 2:0. Dynamo's five-match winning streak ended in Krasnodar, where the Muscovites lost to Kuban 1:3. And the main event of the tour turned into a match in Grozny between Terek and Spartak, which was on the verge of failure due to the failure of electric lighting at the new Akhmat-Arena stadium, commissioned on May 11.

Russian Football Championship

The 19th round ended in scandal. Yesterday in Grozny, in the 81st minute of the match between Terek and Spartak, the electricity went out. This doesn't happen very often at the highest level. Experienced fans will probably remember the European Championship qualifying match between Georgia and Russia, which was interrupted in 2002 for similar reasons. True, then a power outage occurred at the old Tbilisi Lokomotiv stadium. The current incident happened in a completely new arena, which the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov himself, called one of the most important projects in the republic.

The construction of Akhmat Arena, according to experts, cost 7 billion rubles. New stadiums being built in Western Europe cost approximately the same. The arena in Grozny was put into operation on May 11 this year, and world legends Diego Maradona, Franco Baresi, Jean-Pierre Papin and Luis Figo came to participate in the opening match. And RFU President Sergei Fursenko, commenting on this event, said that “now Grozny is becoming a world-class football center.”

The players spent almost forty minutes in the dark right on the field, after which the light gradually returned, but not completely: twilight reigned in one corner of the field. Nevertheless, the game, which was very intriguing before the pause (Terek was leading 2:0, but Spartak equalized the score in the 76th minute), continued. The red-whites, who played in the majority after Grozny goalkeeper Soslan Dzhanaev was sent off, finally put the pressure on the hosts in the last minutes of the meeting, scoring two more goals - 4:2.

The incident in Grozny overshadowed even the central game of the tour, in which the championship favorites met. In the match with CSKA, Zenit head coach Luciano Spalletti solved the main problem that the army's rivals usually face: he found a handle on the terrifying attack - Seydou Doumbia and Wagner. The Italian coach himself did not hide after the meeting that the most important task was to determine the formation that would neutralize the deadly pair of forwards. After all, in previous matches, Zenit suffered greatly from Doumbia and Wagner: the Brazilian and the Ivorian either scored themselves or did everything to make their partners excel. In a one-on-one fight, even St. Petersburg defenders Bruno Alves and Nicholas Lombaerts, who are considered the best in the Premier League, could not resist them. Insurance didn't help either.

However, on Saturday Luciano Spalletti presented a defensive option that turned out to be extremely effective. For the first time under the Italian, Zenit entered the field with five nominal defenders: Tomas Hubocan, who usually operates on the left, was added to Alves and Lombaerts in the center of defense, and the flanks were covered by Alexander Anyukov and newcomer Domenico Criscito. In addition, two supporting midfielders played very deeply - Konstantin Zyryanov and Igor Denisov. In fact, only two were released from defensive work - Alexander Kerzhakov and Danny.

And this defensive scheme, which Rubin usually uses against giants like Barcelona, turned out to be very effective. Despite the assurances of CSKA head coach Leonid Slutsky, who insisted that Zenit’s tactical formation did not come as a surprise to him, the army team was firmly stuck in the opponent’s dense defense. They, of course, had more possession of the ball, dissecting the field with dozens of passes, and therefore one could get the impression that the Muscovites were completely in control of the match. But this was only an illusion - the rare sharp attacks of the St. Petersburgers suggested that Zenit was completely satisfied with the course of the match: no matter how beautifully Wagner and Doumbia pranced with the ball, they could not get into the penalty area. During the entire game, the Brazilian received the ball only once - in the 37th minute - in an advantageous position, eleven meters from the goal, but as soon as the CSKA forward hesitated a little, picking up his leg for a devastating blow, Tomas Hubocan immediately covered him.

However, it cannot be said that Zenit’s new scheme was tailored exclusively for defense: the arrangement of players chosen by Spalletti assumed that the full-backs covered the entire edge, taking over some of the functions of the midfielders. Until recently, the Italian coach had only one player at his disposal who was ready to do such a volume of work - Alexander Anyukov. With the acquisition of Domenico Criscito, Zenit has firmly closed the other side. It is no coincidence that both full-backs played key roles in this meeting.

Debutant Criscito walked down the left flank in the 54th minute and delivered an exemplary serve into the empty zone between the central defenders of CSKA: short Alexander Kerzhakov burst into the rarefied space like a whirlwind and with a subtle nod of his head clipped the ball into the far corner. The army men, without having time to catch their breath, received a second, fatal injection. Trouble came from the other side: Alexander Anyukov made a dizzying dash across the entire field and arrived in the penalty area at the very moment when Danny, who had gathered the CSKA defense around him, rolled the ball into an empty space. The Zenit defender, running at full speed, slowed down a little and hit the ball into the near corner with all his strength with the outside of his foot - 2:0.

The last round was generally quite successful for the St. Petersburgers. They not only reduced the gap from CSKA to a minimum of two points, but also broke away by four points from their pursuer Dynamo. The blue and white's five-match winning streak unexpectedly ended in Krasnodar in a match against Kuban, which had won only twice in the last ten matches. And you can’t say that the Muscovites have somehow given up compared to previous meetings, that the passion and pressure, thanks to which they swept away their competitors, have disappeared from their game. No, all this happened, Dynamo were just desperately unlucky - when Alexander Samedov did not score from a lethal position, when Igor Semshov or Andrey Voronin missed.

But the Muscovites were most unlucky at the end of the first half, when the most reliable Leandro Fernandez unsuccessfully interrupted the pass, actually rolling the ball into the path of Kuban forward Sergei Davydov. And if the guests still won this goal (Kevin Kuranyi brilliantly dealt with the defenders and goalkeeper who were guarding him), then the other two, scored by the Krasnodar team with an interval of eight minutes, completely broke them.

Anji loses two points to Dynamo. In the last round, the Makhachkala team killed two birds with one stone: they convincingly beat Tom 2:0 and introduced their star newcomer, Yuri Zhirkov.

Petr Kuznetsov

Nineteenth round

CSKA-Zenit 0:2

Kerzhakov, 54; Anyukov, 55

"Anji" - "Tom" 2:0

Prudnikov, 17; Gadzhiev, 82

"Volga" - "Rostov" 0:1

Bracamonte, 82. Removals: Bussaidi, 81; Gatskan (both - Rostov), 86

"Kuban" - "Dynamo" 3:1

Davydov, 45+1, 64; Komkov, 72 — Kuranyi, 60

"Amkar" - "Krasnodar" 0:2

Marcio Abreu, 13; Drinčić, 48

"Spartak-Nalchik" - "Rubin" 0:1

Lebedenko, 72

"Lokomotiv" - "Wings of the Soviets" 0:0

"Terek" - "Spartak" 2:4

Asildarov, 20; Mauricio, 35 - Dmitry Kombarov, 51 (pen); Ari, 76; Dzyuba, 90+5; Welliton, 90+7

Missed penalty: Dzyuba (Spartak), 43 (goalkeeper). Removal: Dzhanaev (Terek), 48 (foul of last resort).

Tournament table

VNPMO

1. CSKA	12	5	2	36:14	41
2. Zenit	eleven	6	2	30:12	39
3. Dynamo	10	5	4	30:21	35
4. Anji	9	6	4	22:14	33
5. Ruby	9	6	4	26:16	33
6. Spartak	9	4	6	24:22	31
7. Locomotive	8	5	6	31:22	29
8. Kuban	8	4	7	22:19	28
9. Krasnodar	6	8	5	23:24	26
10. Terek	6	4	9	16:22	22
11. Amkar	5	5	9	13:26	20
12. Tom	4	7	8	18:30	19
13. Volga	5	1	13	17:24	16
14. Rostov	4	4	eleven	20:33	16
15. Spartak-Nalchik	2	7	10	15:26	13
16. Wings of the Soviets	2	7	10	10:27	13

"Spartak" was given a dark