“Spartak” approached the game with “Orenburg” as a clear favorite: the “red-whites” confidently left the group in first place, and in the last matches of the championship they managed to win two important victories and improve their position in the standings.

As a result, the pre-match layouts had little in common with the real picture. In a duel between two Spanish coaches, David Deogracia completely outplayed his young colleague.

Orenburg reservists crushed Spartak

Both coaches with their choice of starting lineups clearly outlined the teams’ current priorities. At this stage of the season, for Abascal and Deograsia, performance in the RPL is much more important than cup showdowns. At the same time, Orenburg was presented in an even more experimental combination than Spartak. If the guests included four players from the first minutes who started the recent game with Baltika (Khlusevich, Babich, Ryabchuk and Sobolev), then the hosts had two of them.

The appearance of 20-year-old Spartak student Maxim Laikin deserves special mention. For the young midfielder, this was his debut match for the first team: before that, he had only appeared on the field once, coming on at the end of Saturday’s game in Kaliningrad.

From the first minutes it became clear that the Orenburg reservists had no problems with motivation. The home team took possession of the ball very quickly, constantly forcing the opponent to foul. As a result, in the first eight minutes, Spartak managed to break the rules six times. The last of these fouls occurred in his own penalty area, when Chernov made a careless play against Vorobiev. Nikolai Titkov, who almost never plays in the championship, missed from the penalty spot.

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Even the missed goal could not wake up the Spartak players, who continued to act in the mode of sleepy flies. During the entire first half, they were only able to strike once at the opponent’s goal, and even that was off target. The pair of defensive midfielders Umyarov-Martins completely lost the center of the field. Bongonda, who had given up sharply recently, seemed to disappear, debutant Laikin was too timid, and the ball simply did not reach Sobolev and Ignatov.

It was only a matter of time before more troubles came out of this game. As a result, at the end of the half, Spartak remained in the minority after Ryabchuk was sent off. The Moldavian defender committed a foul through negligence, knocking down Kovalev, who was running towards the goalkeeper. Chief referee Alexey Sukhoi did not notice the violation, but after the help of VAR he made the right decision.

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Kovalev became the main hero of the half: first, the Belarusian midfielder earned a penalty, and in the end, a red card for the opponent.

Everything will be decided in March

If Spartak decided to lose the Cup, then after the first half everything went according to plan. True, it is not clear why Abascal’s team left the group at all, and even from first place. Even taking into account the return game, the position of the Spartak team looked critical: Orenburg could have scored at least three times in the first half alone.

During the break, Abascal sacrificed one player from the attack group, replacing debutant Laikin with left back Leon Klassen, who took the position of the removed Ryabchuk. In the absence of a game, Spartak was obliged to at least show character. In the recent championship match against Lokomotiv, Spartak also had to spend a whole half in the minority, but then they managed to force a double-edged game on the opponent.

This time nothing similar was observed. Orenburg continued to take the initiative and create chances, and Spartak players tried to make at least two accurate passes in a row. It was difficult. Luckily for Abaskal, Selikhov’s desire and attitude were all right, thanks to whom Spartak retained the chances of a successful outcome of the two-game confrontation.

Spartak did not succeed at all in some complex combinations, so they relied only on the individual skills of individual players and a few standards. This didn’t work either, although one day Ignatov boldly went into someone else’s penalty area and after a series of feints almost equalized the score.

At the very end, Sobolev tried to earn a penalty with the help of a blatant dive, but only ran into a yellow card from the referee. And the most real and, in fact, the only chance “Spartak” created already in the 92nd minute, when Chernov headed over the goal from a couple of meters.

As a result, Abascal’s team lost with a minimal difference in the score and retained their chances of winning after two meetings. The return game will take place in Moscow in early March.