The “bulls” have gained momentum.

Good to know about Sochi

– Sochi residents are preparing for the next derby already without Kurban Berdyev. An experienced specialist was enough for 5 rounds. Under his leadership, the team started with a confident victory CSKA, unexpected defeats from Orenburg and Torch. The accumulated negative background was corrected by a victory over Dynamo, but was quickly followed by a 1:2 against Krylya Sovetov.

– Initially, Berdyev took Vadim Garanin’s place because the southerners finished the first part of the championship on the 9th line of the Premier League – against the backdrop of last year’s silver, this result was perceived as a failure. Under the leadership of a new specialist, nothing has changed dramatically. According to rumors, this is one of the reasons for his resignation.

– Another reason was the style of play that Berdyev instilled in Sochi. And this statement is highly illogical. First of all, because of the background of the mentor: the bosses of Sochi residents knew who they were taking to the post of head coach. Throughout his career, Kurban Berdyev mainly focused on consistency in defense – and so he brought medals to Rostov and Rubin (including gold from the 2008 and 2009 seasons), defeated Barcelona with Kazan in Champions League-2009/10. And because of the composition of Sochi itself. This is the oldest team RPL, which does not include full-fledged top performers. Kurban Bekievich knows how to work with such a selection of players, take them to a new level, but within the framework of his own system.

– Now it is interesting to follow how the situation with Vladislav Sarveli develops. The ex-striker of “Wings” under the leadership of Berdyev began to appear more often in the starting lineup, although he did not score with effective actions. The striker does not play in the new team, even though he finished the previous season as the Wings’ top scorer RPL.

– Sochi will play against Krasnodar under the leadership of Dmitry Khokhlov – he was appointed interim head coach of the team.

Approximate composition of Sochi (3-4-2-1): Adamov – Yurganov, Drkushich, Terekhov – Makarchuk, Noboa, Kravtsov, Margasov – Yusupov, Burmistrov – Melkadze.

It is useful to know Krasnodar

– With the arrival of Vladimir Ivic, the Bulls are progressively improving their standings. The team is already in a direct fight for the top five: it is only 1 point behind Akhmat and Dynamo and 6 points behind CSKA. At the same time, in the future, the southerners are quite capable of bypassing the “white-blue” ones – if Muscovites have stagnated lately, then the “citizens” are gaining power. For 9 matches of the spring part of the season, Krasnodar suffered only 2 defeats, of which only one was in the championship (2:3 with Lokomotiv). After an unsuccessful trip to the capital, the team defeated Khimki, knocked Rostov out of the Cup and did not allow Yuran to start as Pari NN’s mentor with one victory.

– Spertsyan continues to progress under the leadership of the Serbian. The record for personal performances has already been broken – now the midfielder is scoring points as an assistant. In total, he has 17 points in the goal + pass system for 21 league games. And interest in the midfielder is growing: according to the latest data, Eduard was seen by breeders from Inter, Bayer, Freiburg and Borussia Mönchengladbach. And the “citizens” themselves are trying to find an outlet for their pupils in Europe – in the case of Spertsyan, this is a full-fledged transfer, negotiations will be held with Milan. Safonov will be leased to a club that will play in European competitions so that other teams will pay attention to him.

– If deals can be concluded, in the short term, of course, this will hit the team – but there are players who are able to cushion this blow. Nikita Krivtsov began to play much more effectively: in the spring he scored 4 out of 5 goals in the current championship, and also scored a brace in the cup match with Akhmat. The situation is similar with John Cordoba – the Colombian corrected things with the implementation and has 10 goals and 3 assists in 17 games RPL.

Estimated composition of Krasnodar (4-3-3): Safonov – Ramirez, Alonso, Caio, Volkov – Spertsyan, Chernikov, Banyats – Akhmetov, Cordoba, Kobnan.

Good to know about the comparison

– Sochi is a newborn team, so they only played 10 matches for Krasnodar, 2 of which were friendlies.

– Despite the fact that the residents of Sochi cannot be attributed to the favorites RPL, put up a worthy resistance to their neighbors – in 8 official meetings Sochi won three times. In four fights, the “bulls” turned out to be stronger, 1 time the teams were limited to a draw.

– The Leopards have not beaten Krasnodar at home for a long time: a clean sheet win (2:0) at Fisht in March 2020 was followed by a draw and a humiliating 1:2 defeat. Then Sochi took the lead in the 19th minute, but conceded two goals.

Soccer.ru Prediction: it is extremely doubtful that in the current state of “Sochi” is a threat to the “bulls”. It is not clear in which direction the team is moving, what kind of football it will play: they just have to wait for the summer and start the training camp with a new coach. Meanwhile, the Citizens are close to the top 5 and do not want to put off until next weekend what can be done. Vladimir Ivic’s Wards will win a landslide victory.