Spirit and gas

In the semifinals of the Russian Cup, the Zenit championship, striving for a golden oak, clashes with the main loser of the Spartak season, dreaming of getting to Europe

“Everything is lost except honor,” said Andrei Starostin once one of the founders of the people's team. This season, Spartak, who lost 13 matches in the country's championship, lost his face, passion, and general director Thomas Tsorn, who fell under the hot hand of an impatient owner. And even Anton Lisin, who is difficult to blame for the field failures of Jikia and the company, will leave the suffering club at the end of the championship. Perhaps the most terrible for Spartak in the 21st century.

Former President of the Red-White Andrei Chervichenko aptly christened the current team with a flock of beggars, requiring 11-meters from the judges, instead of putting pressure on the opponent to play football. I’ll note from my own: if in the first rounds the subtitable arbitrators, on which Domenico Tedesko is now lowering all the dogs, would not give Muscovites half a dozen extra glasses, it is still unknown who would fly to the FNL in a week ...

Now, the wards of the German coach, whose three -match disqualification for the collision with the servants of Themis does not apply to cup battles, there is only one important departure. In St. Petersburg to Zenit, who had fun washed gold medals. So fun that, looking at Dziubu with Azmun, who jokingly imitated sexual intercourse in the victorious locker room, club president Alexander Medvedev expressed confidence that the best scorers of the championship with Spartak in Sunday battle will do the same. Medvedev and Goleodorov for blue-white-blue Humor condemned the public, and the deputy chairman of the Directors of Spartak, Sergei Mikhailov, even wrote a complaint to the RFU ethics committee with a request to understand and punish the St. Petersburg leader for an inadequate analogy.

Be that as it may, but Alexander Ivanovich with this very phrase, quite likely, will ultimately set up his opponent to battle. And if we recall the fact that the receiving side in this pair “Zenith” did not quite honestly (due to error in the regulations, it was decided to determine the owner of the field according to last year’s rules and not to conduct a draw, on which Leonid Fedun insisted), the guests have two excellent incentives to get out of Gazprom for two dry defeats in the championship.

Moreover, only the winnings of the trophy, which, incidentally, did not submit to Spartak for 17 years, will allow not to miss the next European Cup season and start in the Europa League from the group round. And, no matter how trite it may sound, at least somehow justifying the fans for 12 months of shame and pain.

However, so far no revanchist emotions are observed in the camp of an outsider. For example, the new general manager Shamil Gazizov, who built a mini-imperial in Ufa, said the following on the eve of the fateful battle: “Our task is to fight Zenit not in a separate match, but to be competitive at a distance.” And from such words, sorry, hopeless and loser.

It is clear that the disassembled “Spartak” surprises with a minus sign both in defense and attack. Hedgehog is clear that the goalkeeper is not always helped out. And the character and the famous “Spartak” spirit (only one (!) The strong -willed victory in Orenburg for the entire championship) is a little higher than zero. Yes, a merciless “Zenith”, which scored twice as much and missed twice less “Spartak”, holds a blow perfectly and has not lost it for a long time in the native arena. And, by the way, for two whole years, Sergei Semak, who retains the motivation, does not fall into red-white captivity. But in a single match, especially Kubkov, all these arguments for and against often are fading into the background.

And instead of laying the straw in case of failure and launch the hashtag “Judge“ Spartak ”as“ Zenith ”in social networks, you just need to get together, get angry and play. Play as it should be 22-fold champion of the country and the 13-time Cup winner. And split Dziubu with Azmun, while retaining honor.