The Spartak-Dynamo poster is loud and alluring, regardless of the state of the teams and their position in the table. But the excitement around the match of the fifth round of the Russian Premier League of the 2008 season exceeded all expectations. There was the first full house in 23 years at the White-Blues home match, the box office was empty – all tickets were sold. An additional color to the surroundings was added by the confrontation between young and daring coaches – Andrey Kobelev and Stanislav Cherchesov.

The stadium was divided into two opposing factions, and those and others were driven with all their might. In Dynamo, the Portuguese Danny, the Kombarov brothers and Alexander Kerzhakov shone, in Spartak – Vladimir Bystrov, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Welliton.

On April 13, 2008, the teams played a super-dramatic match. And the main anti-hero of that game was Roman Pavlyuchenko.

Photo: © Epsilon / Stringer / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

Pavlyuchenko left Spartak in the minority

Less than 10 minutes of the meeting, as the goalkeeper of the hosts Anton Shunin seriously rescued the team – experienced Yegor Titov hit his head great, but the 21-year-old goalkeeper played even better, reliably hitting the ball. This save gave confidence to Anton’s team, and the hosts scored first – Stipe Pletikosa parried Kirill Kombarov’s treacherous low shot, but Bulgarian striker Tsvetan Genkov played first on the rebound.

However, the “red-whites” immediately found something to answer their historical rival. Fine pass of Alexander Pavlenko gracefully used Vladimir Bystrov, and by the 16th minute of the match the score was 1:1. To the delight of the home stands, the events of the first half did not end there. Dynamo players combined better and looked more diverse, as a result, on 32 minutes the White-and-Blues took the lead – Danny completed a good combination of the team. And at the end of the half, Roman Pavlyuchenko scored with a minus sign, who at first did not keep his mouth shut, and then severely violated the rules by playing with his elbow. It is not surprising that Stanislav Sukhina, who then worked as an arbiter, showed the forward two yellow cards. Spartak started the second half in the minority, losing 1:2.

Photo: © RIA Novosti / Vladimir Fedorenko

“Lost all but honor”

Surprisingly, the guests were able to mobilize and in the second half of the meeting look even better in attack than the opponent. In the 65th minute, a set piece came to the aid of Spartak not far from Shunin’s goal – Pavlenko hit the top nine and equalized the score. However, the Red-Whites had serious problems in defense – a chaotic game in their third of the field led to the fact that Genkov first scored a double, and two minutes later Danny joined him. Dynamo took the lead 4:2, and it seemed that Cherchesov’s team had no chance.

But the intrigue was still alive. Guest stands literally exploded after Welliton closed his head from the corner. 4:3 with 12 minutes left. The Red-Whites really wanted to score more, but the hosts didn’t let them do it. Dynamo had another killer moment, but Kerzhakov failed to realize an exit to the goalkeeper. Another fiasco, because by that time Alexander could not have scored in the RPL.

– With all due respect to Pavlyuchenko, today Spartak Moscow played the second half with ten men. It was the Moscow Spartak. As Nikolai Petrovich Starostin said, everything was lost in the second half, except for honor. We have kept our honor. And Pavlyuchenko is the last question, in my opinion, Cherchesov said at the post-match press conference.

Kobelev, in turn, called the game exciting, intense and attractive, and also praised Spartak for the fact that the players fought in the minority. After that game, Dynamo did not lose eight matches in a row to the Red-Whites until 2012.

Given the bright start of Spartak this season and the unhealed pain of Dynamo from the defeat in the Cup final, we have the right to expect no less cool action from the upcoming match in the oldest Moscow derby.