Spartak hosted Rubin Kazan in Moscow. The guests showed from the first minutes that the main thing for them was not to fail. Rashid Rakhimov’s team focused on defense, even with the help of rule violations. The main “technicians” of the red-and-whites, Ezequiel Barco and Manfred Ugalde, were particularly affected.
However, the main threat to the home side came from Theo Bongonda. The visitors responded with dangerous attacks and, with luck, could have opened the scoring.
In the 33rd minute, Kazan lost defender Igor Vuyachic, who, after a hard challenge by Daniil Denisov, asked for a substitute.
After the break, Spartak started to attack more, but in the 62nd minute they were reduced to ten men after Roman Zobnin was sent off. But this did not affect the game in any way. Dejan Stankovic’s team continued to lay siege to the goal and earned a penalty in the 73rd minute, which Barco converted.
The score remained unchanged until the final whistle. Spartak scored 14 points and moved up to third place.
