Krylya Sovetov had a great time playing their last game in the Russian Championship. Samarans approached the home match with Krasnodar as outsiders, but in reality they looked no worse than the southerners, who are claiming medals this season. The hosts were ahead of the guests in many important indicators and at least twice could open an account already in the first half, but the “bulls” in both cases were saved by the goal frame.

The Wings had an excellent opportunity to put the squeeze on their opponents at the end of the meeting. The Volzhans stepped up the pressure and carried out one of their best attacks, which ended in a goal. It seemed that now the team would score a well-deserved victory, but this time the referee suddenly got in the way of the Samara team.

The referee did not see the right goal and deprived the Wings of the victory. But the security cameras captured everything!

Stolen Victory

The match between Wings and Krasnodar was held as part of the 11th round of the RPL. The victory in this meeting was equally necessary for both the guests and the hosts: some are trying to keep up with other top clubs in pursuit of Zenit, the latter are finally trying to get out of the bottom of the table. With a fairly solid game, the team of Igor Osinkin, according to the results of the last two months, was on the 11th line, letting even the newcomers of the league in the face of Orenburg go ahead. Samarans won only twice in ten matches, and the team urgently needed to correct these statistics.

So the Volga players went to the game with Krasnodar with a fighting spirit. In the first half, the “Wings” outplayed the rivals: 5:2 on corners, 7:1 on shots from outside the penalty area, and two more hits on the post. After the break, the hosts continued to put pressure on them and carried out a couple of really dangerous attacks, but Matvey Safonov heroically parried Samarans’ blows.

Open video

A good chance to finally open the scoring in the match came from the “Wings” in the 81st minute, when Alexei Sukhoi awarded a free kick against Krasnodar. Maxim Glushenkov took advantage of the opportunity and made a convenient throw, which Roman Evgeniev responded to near the goalkeeper. The Volzhan defender outplayed his counterparts in the air and sent the ball into the goal with his head. Safonov miraculously reacted to the blow, but, as it seemed from the broadcast footage, he did it after the projectile was behind the ribbon.

Ultimately, VAR had to decide on the episode. To the disappointment of the Samara public, the video assistants did not count the goal, so the match ended in a dull “zero”.

“Goal was”

However, in Samara they did not put up with judicial arbitrariness. Wings General Director Vadim Andreev said that immediately after the match, the club applied to the Expert Referee Commission (ESC RFU). The desire of the team to achieve justice was supported by the governor of the Samara region Dmitry Azarov, who was personally present at the game with Krasnodar. It was he, according to Andreev, who suggested a way to solve the problem:

– After it became clear that the broadcaster’s cameras did not have a clear understanding of where the ball was, the governor offered to watch the moment from the stadium’s cameras. It became clear from them that the ball was in the goal. We sent these pictures to the ESC, the members of the commission got acquainted with them and agreed that there was a goal, – said the general director of the “Championship”.

Photo: © Personal archive of Dmitry Azarov

The commission indeed confirmed that Sukhoi “erroneously did not count the goal”, but they did not blame the referee for this. According to the commentary of experts, neither the judge nor his video assistants simply had the opportunity to view the episode from the angle of the security camera:

– During the matches, the video assistant referees have at their disposal only camera angles installed by the main broadcaster, on the basis of which decisions are made in the match. None of the angles of this game episode, available to the video assistants, provided an opportunity to have obvious evidence of the fact that the ball, after hitting the goal by a player from the Krylya Sovetov team, completely crossed the goal line, the ESC explained.

It is curious that the commission also admitted another serious mistake of the judge. In the 87th minute, Sukhoi did not issue a second warning to Krasnodar defender Kayo and, therefore, did not send the Brazilian off the field. Considering that the referee later added 5 minutes to the main time, the Wings could well finish the opponent, who remained in the minority in the final segment of the meeting. But, alas, no one will return the well-deserved points to the Samara residents. But the problem with the lack of cameras, perhaps, will be solved by the next game at Solidarity.