Kazan club won the Super Cup

On Saturday, the new football season in Russia opened with the Super Cup match in Samara. It was a meeting between the champion of the last two years, Zenit, and the Cup winner, Rubin. The Kazan team, who dominated most of the match, achieved a logical victory - 2:0.

Recently, Zenit has become, perhaps, the most important rival for Rubin. In the last championship, which lasted for a year and a half, they met four times. Torn by personnel and playing problems at the time (during the championship, the team lost leading players and experienced problems in management, which ultimately led to the change of president and general director, as well as the creation of a supervisory board), Rubin did not win any of them.

Before the next battle between the teams in Samara, it seemed that the advantage would again be on the side of Zenit. The champion spent the end of the last championship very confidently, maintaining his winning squad (with the exception of Andrei Arshavin, who returned to Arsenal after his loan at Zenit expired). And like this - complete, with practically no weak points - Zenit could not do anything with Rubin.

In this match he made a pitiful impression and was not at all like himself at the end of the last championship. The St. Petersburg team looked clearly unprepared for the start of the season. It seemed that head coach Luciano Spalletti overloaded the team at the training camp. The players had difficulty moving from defense to attack, could not make a single breakthrough and generally moved heavily, which is why gaps between the lines began to appear in Zenit’s game. The champions simply did not hold the ball - sometimes they could not complete three accurate passes in a row. The Kazan people skillfully took advantage of the disadvantages of the St. Petersburgers. Their fast attack group, having spent the first 15 minutes on reconnaissance, time after time discovered gaps in the opponent’s defense. Both Roman Eremenko and Vladimir Dyadyun could distinguish themselves. However, both were prevented from opening the scoring by a defect in the most important thing - in execution - the balls after their shots from lethal positions flew past the goal.

After half an hour of play, it was a pity to watch Zenit - the St. Petersburgers were sometimes openly "carried around." By that time, Rubin was already leading. In the 28th minute, Salvatore Bocchetti jumped highest in the Zenit penalty area and headed in an amazingly accurate pass from Roman Eremenko. Having taken the lead, Rubin was simply obliged to finish off Zenit before the whistle for the break: the St. Petersburgers looked painfully lethargic and weak-willed. Even the return goal against Rubin, scored by Roman Shirokov (albeit after the referee's whistle about a violation of the rules by one of the St. Petersburgers), they somehow contested without pressure and the stormy emotions inherent in such episodes.

Vladimir Dyadyun finished off Zenit. The weak point in Zenit's defense once again turned out to be the central defenders. If in the first case, Bruno Alves did not look after Bocchetti, then in the second, Nicholas Lombaerts made a gross mistake, who, no matter how much he reached into the tackle with his long leg, still could not knock the ball away from Dyadyun. The Rubin striker, as if not noticing the opposition of the Belgian defender, gracefully sent the ball into the net.

After the break, Rubin returned to the counterattack version of the game, which had been polished over the years, thanks to which Zenit felt freer. Luciano Spalletti predictably strengthened the attack with Alexander Bukharov, and the St. Petersburgers began to have at least some chances at the opponent’s goal. True, only two shots by Roman Shirokov were truly scoring (however, both of them were sent away from the target by the Russian national team midfielder from an advantageous position). The rest of Zenit's attacks were predictable and did not stump Rubin's busy defense. The Kazan team very skillfully dried up the game (perhaps only Rubin can play like that in Russia) and confidently defended their advantage until the final whistle, becoming the winners of the Super Cup for the second time in their history.

Rubin's victory seems to have surprised not only the St. Petersburg fans, who were the overwhelming majority at Samara's Metallurg, but also the Kazan club's employees. In any case, in the Rubin locker room, where the celebrating players moved with the cup, there was not even champagne, traditional for such occasions.

Yuri Ugrinov, Kazan

Rubin took the first trophy