Zenit crushed one of the RPL season leaders. It was painful to watch Goncharenko’s team.
Kirill Zakatchenko August 26, 2023, 17:20 Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
In one match, Ural missed more than in the previous five rounds.
Ural came to visit Zenit for the matchday 6 of the RPL. Viktor Goncharenko’s team was ahead of the opponent in the table before the game and was probably hoping to extend the successful summer streak.
Zenit entered the game with an interesting setup in the center of defense. Strahinja Erakovic was not included in the application and Robert Renan remained on the bench. Before the game, the blue and white coach, Sergei Semak, said that the Serbian was injured and that the Brazilian was not at 100 percent. As a result, the company of Nuraly Alipu in the center of the defense was Douglas Santos and Vyacheslav Karavaev. Only for a Kazakh footballer can this position be considered outlined.
How Goncharenko could end up at Zenit:
Goncharenko could have replaced Semak at Zenit. However, in Saint Petersburg they made a different decision.
However, Zenit played the first part with such force that almost no one remembered the center of defense. Apparently, the Urals cautiously entered the field and immediately pressed against the goal. Mateo Cassierra was able to open the account already in the third minute: to execute, he hit the farthest angle, but hit the post. Ural fans probably hoped that such a start would cheer up their team, but in reality it turned out differently.
The guests lasted only eight minutes. Zenit’s first goal is, above all, a great pass from Claudinho. The Brazilian shot smoothly to the far post and Ivan Sergeev pushed the ball into the net past goalkeeper Ilya Pomazun from a sharp angle. The Zenit striker has scored three goals this RPL season, and all at his stadium. But in the Cup, Ivan scored away from home, in Samara, which was not alien to him.
True, while the first place in the Zenit scorer list is occupied by Cassierra. In the 30th minute, the Ural defenders frankly failed and allowed the Colombian to score the fifth goal of the season. Cassierra himself showed himself excellent at the final stage – he easily knocked out Pomazun and calmly rolled the ball into the goal. Throughout the last season, Mateo scored six goals, but then in the RPL he only scored twice.
The Zenit players clearly enjoyed the match. And “Ural” again had problems out of the blue. Pomazun, in a completely harmless situation, gave the ball to Claudinho, and the skilful Brazilian punished the opponent and launched it from outside the box. This is the first goal by a South American with a Russian passport in this RPL season.
It was impossible to go to the second half. After 45 minutes, it became clear that even now the Urals would not be able to correct the terrible statistics on their own. The Yekaterinburg club has never beaten Zenit in Russian history: 24 matches, four draws and 20 losses. And the statistics in St. Petersburg are even worse – 12 matches, 12 losses.
Zenit players celebrate another goal
Photo by: FC Zenit
After the break, Zenit continued to taunt. There is no other name for Cassierra’s second goal. A new mistake in the defense of the Urals is another punishment. Cassierra beat Pomazun again, and then had so much time that the ball had to be in the goal. It is not clear what the defense of the Urals was doing at that time. Goncharenko will have something to figure out after the game.
In the last minutes, Zenit was closer to the fifth goal than Ural to the first. In one of the episodes, the referee was able to award a penalty to the Zenit goal. The ball apparently hit the hand of Alexei Sutormin, but the referee noted after the replay that there was a foul by the guest player earlier. Semak’s team, after a not very good start (four points in three rounds), had three victories in a row. She is already in the top 3 and the difference with the leader is calculated in only one point. However, not all competitors played round six matches. And the Urals suffered the first defeat of the season. In five rounds, Goncharenko’s team lost three goals, four of them in the match in St. Petersburg.
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