Outbid Baltika: Spartak goes to visit a competitor for a place in the top three

In the upcoming fourth round of the Russian Football Championship, the entire three favorites of the tournament will have to play with extremely unyielding opponents. It is expected that Spartak Moscow will have the most difficult time, which is going to visit Kaliningrad Baltika. Both clubs scored the same number of points. Zenit St. Petersburg is located next to them. He will have to host Dynamo Moscow at home. And Krasnodar, which goes first, is waiting for Akhmat Grozny to visit.

Baltika — Spartak

The current Russian Cup winner started the championship with two wins. First, Spartak confidently defeated the Moscow Rodina (3:0), and then narrowly won away from Akhmat, scoring the winning goal at the end of the meeting. But the very first test of readiness to fight for gold in the form of a match with a direct competitor ended in failure — the red and white lost at home to Krasnodar (1:2).

Now Juan Carlos Carcedo's team is going to Kaliningrad to join the main sensation of last season. Having withdrawn from the First League a year ago, Baltika immediately joined the fight for the RPL medals. It was only in the spring that she slowed down, having not won a single match in the last eight rounds. Nevertheless, the club managed to finish in sixth place, the best result in history.

Andrey Talalaev's team started the new championship in such a way that they can climb back to the top of the table. At first they lost away to CSKA Moscow (1:2), but then they won two victories — at home over Dynamo Moscow (2:1) and on the road over Krylia Sovetov Samara (2:0).

Now Baltika is fourth behind Spartak, having scored six points each and losing to the red-whites only by the difference between goals scored and conceded. In the previous championship, Kaliningrad beat Spartak twice — 3-0 away and 1-0 at home. Since then, the red and white have received a new head coach - Spaniard Carlos Carcedo, who came in the winter, won the Russian Cup with the team. And now, for the first time, he will meet with one of the most unyielding RPL teams.

— The match will be very unpredictable in terms of the result, I would even call Baltika the favorite by a small margin, — Andrey Chervichenko, the former owner of Spartak, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — Talalaev has a very well-organized and evil team. Moreover, it is clear that she has not lost these qualities compared to last season. Such opponents are extremely inconvenient for Spartak. Akhmat, which is somewhat similar to Baltika, has already rattled the nerves of red and white. And the defeat against Krasnodar showed that with the right level of resistance, they have big problems. Therefore, it will be very difficult for Spartak in Kaliningrad.

Zenit — Dynamo (Moscow)

After a sensational home defeat in the last round against the RPL debutant Rodina (1:2), Zenit lagged behind the leading Krasnodar by three points and is ahead of Spartak and Baltika only in terms of the difference between goals scored and conceded, with equal points scored.

And now he will meet at home with one of his most uncomfortable rivals in recent years, Dynamo Moscow. The Blue and white have changed coaches more than once in recent years, but each time they have rattled Zenit's nerves. It was Dynamo who knocked St. Petersburg out of the "RPL Path" of the Russian Cup last season. (3:1; 0:1).

Now they will try to resist the blue-white-blues again. At the beginning of the summer, Sandro Schwartz, one of the most successful specialists at the head of Dynamo in recent history, returned to the post of head coach of the team. The second coming of the German had a difficult start — a home draw with Krylia Sovetov (0:0) and an away defeat against Baltika (1:2).

Only in the last round, the team managed to defeat Dynamo Makhachkala (3:1), but this meeting was not easy either — there were zeros on the scoreboard until the 77th minute, and Schwartz's team created almost nothing in attack until young midfielder Timofey Marinkin opened the scoring with a long-range shot. With four points, Dynamo Moscow is in the middle of the table in eighth place, five points behind the leader.

"We had a difficult first two rounds — it's hard to say why we couldn't win, perhaps it was the fact that it was the start of the season, the huge pressure," Timofey Marinkin said in a conversation with Izvestia. — But it's great that we were able to beat Makhachkala and now we're going to St. Petersburg. We have to go out on the field and win. How can this be done? The most usual way we usually won was through maximum aggression. It should be a good game.

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Krasnodar — Akhmat

After three rounds, Krasnodar remained the only RPL team that did not lose a single point in the current championship. The Bulls started with an away victory over Rubin Kazan (3:1), then almost missed a 3-0 advantage at home over Fakel Voronezh, but still won (3:2). And the crowning achievement of a successful start was a strong-willed away victory over Spartak (2:1).

And this is against the background of personnel problems in the attack — due to an injury sustained as part of the Colombian national team at the World Cup, Krasnodar's leader, striker John Cordoba, is missing the first rounds of the RPL. His replacement, Uruguayan Juan Bosseli, was injured after the first round and is also not yet an assistant to the bulls.

The other day, the head coach of the team, Murad Musayev, announced that both forwards are already training in the general group. But he did not specify when they could be seen on the field. In these conditions, the main attack bet is on Dmitry Vorobyov, who was acquired from Lokomotiv in July.

Midfielder Nikita Krivtsov also stands out. In previous seasons, he was good at coming on as a substitute, but after Eduard Spertsyan left for Saudi Arabia, he successfully replaced him and began to prove himself as a solid foundation player.

Now Krasnodar will have to play at home with Akhmat. The Grozny club has scored only two points so far, but it has already proved to be a team that no one will be able to compete with. He achieved an away draw with Lokomotiv (1:1), then just missed out to a home draw with Spartak (1:2). Only in the last round, Stanislav Cherchesov's team performed below expectations, losing points in an away game with one of the outsiders of the RPL, Fakel (0:0).

"I think we played a high—quality match against Spartak and deserved to win," Krasnodar midfielder Magomed Ozdoev told Izvestia. — And in general, the team is deservedly in the lead. In my opinion, she plays very high-quality football, shows character in difficult situations and is capable of adding even more.

There will also be five more matches in the fourth round of the RPL. Moscow's Lokomotiv will visit Orenburg. CSKA Moscow will host Fakel Voronezh on its field, and Rodina Moscow will meet Akron Togliatti at home. Rostov will play a home match against Rubin Kazan, and Krylia Sovetov Samara will play against Dynamo Makhachkala.