Spartak will play Dynamo Makhachkala in the third round of the group stage of the RPL Path of the Russian Cup. The red-and-whites have not met with clubs from the capital of Dagestan for several years, and their previous meetings were with another team – Anzhi. In some of them a spark was lit – the matches turned out to be really hot. One of the most memorable and scandalous occurred in the autumn of 2012. And it actually put an end to his career as a referee of that match.
Spartak started the 2012/2013 season under Unai Emery, being silver medalists and a participant in the Champions League qualification. Enriched thanks to Suleiman Kerimov, Anzhi was a Europa League team with “golden” ambitions – the Makhachkala team was coached by Guus Hiddink. Spartak started off cheerfully in the RPL, winning three games in a row, but then fell to Zenit (0-5) and became unstable. Anzhi, on the contrary, initially lost points, but after drawing with Zenit (1-1) in the 5th round, it managed a streak of six consecutive victories and rose to the top by mid-October. The teams from Makhachkala and Moscow approached the face-to-face meeting, occupying the first and sixth places, respectively. They played in the capital of Dagestan.
Three days after the trip to Makhachkala, Spartak had a very important Champions League group stage match against Benfica. But, of course, the red-and-whites could not afford to be ill-prepared for a meeting with a team that included Samuel Eto’o, Lassana Diarra, Mbark Boussoufa, Chris Samba, Yuri Zhirkov, Oleg Shatov and Vladimir Gabulov. During that part of the season, the schedule for the Muscovites was simply terrible: Celtic, CSKA, Anzhi, Benfica – four difficult battles in three weeks.
Referee Eduard Maly officiated the match at the Makhachkala Dynamo Stadium. He became the main character of the game. More precisely, an antihero. The Volgograd referee acted in such a way that after the final whistle, many Spartak fans wanted to hurt him.
For Anji that day, the main loss was… Hiddink. The head coach played unsuccessfully in training, injured his knee and did not fly to Makhachkala (the team was based in the capital). The owners were led by his assistant Zeljko Petrovich.
Perhaps Hiddink’s absence affected the nature of the game. The leader was not too impressive and Spartak scored first in the 35th minute. Welliton finished off the attack with a shot at the post, but he himself picked up the ball and gave it to Diniyar Bilyaletdinov – the midfielder shot accurately from contact with his left foot. In the scoring episode, Welliton could have been offside when he received the ball. Only other decisions by Maly’s team forced Anzhi to abandon their complaints about the referees’ work, if they really had any.
The referee began to hand out cards one after another, mainly to Spartak players. At the same time, he missed several fouls by Anzhi players. And in the 46th minute, Kirill Kombarov was sent off for a second warning: the Spartak player harshly confronted Fedor Smolov in the air. Emery’s team was outnumbered, thinking only about how to defend themselves somehow. But they did not defend themselves. At the end of the hour mark, giant striker Lacina Traoré, having received the best cutting pass from Eto’o, hit Sergei Pesyakov.
The decisive moment was a controversial one in the 90+4 minute. Anzhi put Spartak under pressure in added time thanks to a dubious free kick awarded after a foul on Traore. For the red-and-whites, losing was even more offensive, as they scored into their own net: defender Juan Insaurralde, interrupting the kick-off on the right, headed into his own goal.
Judge Eduard Maly
Photo: Sergey Rasulov, “Championship”
After the match, Spartak players unanimously spoke about Maly’s refereeing. There were no good words.
“All questions are to the referee who influenced the result,” Emery said dryly. “Maly’s refereeing played into the opponent’s hands. After Kombarov’s unjustified dismissal, the game changed. And in the case of the second goal: the referee awarded a free kick when there was no infringement. I thank our players for their dedication, but Maly did everything possible to prevent Spartak from winning.”
The head coach received support from the Club’s general director Valery Karpin:
“Maly committed four times more fouls against our players than against our opponents! This simply does not happen in football. This is unreal! This referee actually blew the whistle for Spartak. I am not even talking about the cards he showed to our team’s players. I cannot call it anything other than lawlessness.”
Spartak defender Marek Suchy was also outraged.
“Referees are the main disadvantage of the Russian championship,” the Czech said. “What they are doing here is simply terrible.” I don’t even know what to say about the match with Anzhi. Traore falls, as if in a theatre. And in the case of the dismissal, there was a normal fight between Kombarov and Smolov. How many times, for example, have I received elbows from Traore!
Kirill Kombarov
Photo: Sergey Rasulov, “Championship”
And the dismissed Kombarov went even further in his criticism: he proposed banning Maly for life:
“From the beginning to the end of the match, the referee was unfair to Spartak. During the match, he whistled in one direction for almost every controversial moment: he awarded incomprehensible free kicks in our direction, he missed fouls on our players, he handed out yellow cards left and right. Even before the break, I put four Spartak players on them. Moreover, the vast majority of these violations did not merit warnings. Just touch him and he immediately turns yellow! What is this called?! In Europe, he would have been banned for life for such refereeing!”
The opinion of the Spartacists was apparently shared by the then head of the RFU refereeing and inspection department, Roberto Rosetti. After the scandal in Makhachkala, Maly stopped receiving assignments for matches, and three months later, Eduard announced his retirement altogether. According to the official version, it was due to problems with his hip joint. However, the referee did not give up football. Maly was appointed to the post of judicial inspector.
Anji did not survive the race for gold that season and finished third. Spartak, on the contrary, got closer to the leaders after replacing Emery with Karpin. As a result, the Makhachkala team beat the Muscovites by just two points, and if it were not for Insaurralde’s own goal, the red-and-whites would have been higher.
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It is interesting that Spartak and the Makhachkala team will now play against the backdrop of strong discontent among the southerners with refereeing. Dynamo even recently published an open letter, reprimanding the referees and the RFU CES. Will there be a new scandal?
