CSKA has the worst game of the RPL season. Miraculously we didn’t lose to Orenburg in the last seconds!
Anatoly Romanov August 25, 2023, 19:50 Moscow time
CSKA finally saved the crossbar from defeat.
The sixth day of the RPL opened with the match between Orenburg and CSKA. For the locals, this match was the first after the resignation of Jiri Yaroshik and the appointment of David Deogracia as head coach. Almost nothing was known about the 50-year-old Spaniard, except that he worked in Belarus with the youth of Dynamo Brest and Shakhtar Soligorsk, and in Orenburg he participated in the development of the academy. This fact made it difficult for Vladimir Fedotov to prepare for an opponent. However, CSKA also had its own “secret weapon”: for the first time, rookie Chilean striker Dávila entered the app.
The army team started the game very cautiously, as if they decided to take a closer look at the opponent and wait for him to make the first move. Orenburg, on the other hand, looked like a team that knew what to do on the field. The hosts were not going to give the ball to the favorite and play as “number two”: they passed in their own half, created attacks through Vera and another defensive midfielder, Bašić – these two sank deep enough to be able to come back. It can be said that the Orenburgs lured the Muscovites, and then with long passes they threw the ball behind the backs of the CSKA defenders.
Either by Deogracia’s plan or during the match, the Orenburg players themselves found a weak link in the defense of the red-and-blues, but one way or another, the hosts again and again passed attacks on the flank of Mansilla and Sidorov . The right flank of CSKA was on fire – the young Glebov and the elderly Nababkin did not have time to close the zones. Several good quick attacks from Orenburg did not end in scoring chances only because the last pass was poorly executed. Then the match of “Orenburg” was somewhat spoiled by the forced substitution of Florentin – the Argentine was injured out of the blue. Perhaps everything is in a specific artificial field. By the way, it was not Akinfeev who took the place at the gates of the army, but Torop, as they explain in CSKA, because of the “shoals of the lawn”.
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The most memorable episode of the first part with the participation of Torop was the fall of Kovalev in the CSKA box. The goalkeeper tried to catch the ball and the midfielder who was fighting with him fell to the grass. Referee Levnikov did not call a penalty and seems to have been right, as Kovalev “dived”. CSKA also created the best moment a couple of minutes before the break. “Orenburg” as a whole acted compactly and reliably in defense, but then the tired defenders gasped, and Zabolotny arranged Chalov one on one. Well done goalkeeper Sysuev made a beautiful save. But the striker himself, it must be admitted, struck unsuccessfully.
But after the break, the military team scored a quick goal. In the first minutes of the second half, the teams created the moment after the standards. But if Gojkovic really hit the ball from the goal line, then his CSKA colleague Moisés took advantage of his chance.
The rojiazules took a “cheap” corner and punished the rival for an error. Zabolotny made an excellent pass into the far corner of the goalkeeper’s box, where the Brazilian was abandoned by the Orenburg defenders. Moises nodded and conveyed the heartfelt greeting from him to someone. He does not want to say that the goal was in the game, but CSKA Fedotova knows how to get the most out of the least.
The army team’s goal opened the game, and then it became even more interesting. Especially in the field there were newcomers. In CSKA, the long-awaited Davila entered the position of the inside right, and the Orenburg coach attacked the talented 19-year-old Ecuadorian Cuero, who, going to Russia, for some reason thought that Zenit was buying him. The locals played a lot in the scored goal. At first, CSKA were lucky: Kovalev hit the post after Adamov’s cross from the right. And the goal against the red and blue ones also came from the other band, although Fedotov refreshed it with substitutions. Gaich did not cover Mansilla’s center and Vera closed the far post.
“Orenburg” and with the score 1:1 was not inferior to the army team – the Deogracia team held its game until the last minutes. But CSKA did not impress. Dávila, apparently, still isn’t in his best form after a layoff and didn’t play with his teammates. There was a moment when Levnikov rushed to fix a foul by the Chilean, because then Zabolotny sent the ball into the net. Chalov, for his part, continued his “dry” streak, if he doesn’t score penalty goals. Fedor has all four goals in the new season of the RPL – from 11 meters (from the field he only scored in Orenburg in the Russian Cup).
Deogracia’s debut could end with Orenburg’s first victory in the Championship, but in the last attack Oganesyan charged the ball over the crossbar.
Crazy ending!
