The first friendly match of the winter VTB training camps ended in an amazing win of the White-Blues.
Sandro Schwarz fielded an unusual starting line-up for the first match after the vacation. Three newcomers started the game against the Qatari Military football team. Fedor Smolov appeared at the helm. Kirill Zhukovskiy took the right wing, while another Dynamo-2 youngster Georgy Sulakvelidze formed a midfield duo with Arsen Zakharyan. Alexander Kutitsky closed the left-back position for the second time in his senior career.
Dynamo players were very active at the beginning of the match and constantly pushed the opponents to make mistakes on their half of the pitch. In the 2nd minute Smolov became the pioneer of the attacking threat, who disturbed the Qatari goalkeeper Mam Cheik by a solid shot on target.
Smolov and Zakharyan were particularly active. The latter tried to alternate long-range strikes with smart assists to his teammates. The young Sulakvelidze was not afraid of demonstrating his dribbling skills and collected a lot of fouls on him in the first half.
Sergey Parshivlyuk, who came on the pitch with the captain's armband, assisted accurately on Smolov’s header, but the goalkeeper won the battle reaching the ball with his fingertips. Soon he could not avoid frustration, when Fedor scored an opener since his return to the parent club.
Ivan Ordets delivered the ball into the Qatari penalty area. Vyacheslav Grulev outran the goalkeeper and was thrown down inside the box. The referee pointed out to the spot and Smolov converted a penalty more than confidently. Less than 5 minutes later, Fedor earned another 11-meter shot and didn’t leave many chances for Mam Cheik again.
The only goal scoring episode at Dynamo goal happened in the 35th minute. However, Igor Leshchuk showed his best skills keeping the clean sheet. By the half-time whistle, the White-Blues notched one more goal – Zhukovskiy converted Grulev's low cross to make it 3:0.
After the interval, Dynamo coaching staff almost completely changed the squad. Only Saba Sazonov remained on the pitch and shifted to the defensive midfielder position. He started the goal scoring attack, intercepting the ball and making a pass to Sebastian Szymanski. The Polish international rolled it to Konstantin Tyukavin, who brilliantly beat the goalkeeper.
Then the goals came in showers. Dmitry Skopintsev, Yaroslav Gladyshev (scored a brace), Konstantin Tyukavin (scored a brace), Andrey Mazurin, who made his debut for the first team, and Saba Sazonov scored to fit every taste. Daniil Fomin converted a penalty in a Panenka style bringing Dynamo advantage to a 12:0 win. Szymanski played a successful game after his surgery making three assists in 45 minutes.
Our team finishes the Qatari training camp on January 21 and will fly back to Moscow. The second and third camps of the White-Blues will be held in Turkey.