The main time of the meeting, which took place at VTB Arena, ended with a score of 1:1. In the penalty shootout, the blue and white team was more accurate — 5:4.
The starting lineup included all the strongest players currently at the disposal of Marcel Lick. Diego Laxalt had to return to the left flank of defense, replacing the ailing Dmitry Skopintsev. In the center of the field, Alexander Kutitsky made up a pair with Daniil Fomin.
The first 10 minutes passed with the advantage of the blue-white team, but it was not possible to create anything dangerous except for a half cross-half shot by Yaroslav Gladyshev. As always, Milan Mastrovic stood out with his thirst for struggle, having received a yellow card early on for pushing Oleg Ryabchuk outside the field.
The first moment occurred in the 17th minute. Ely Dasa quickly threw the ball out of the out, Bitello ran away from his opponent and hit cunningly into the near corner from an acute angle — Aleksandr Selikhov reacted and sent the ball to a corner kick. Five minutes later, Laxalt launched Konstantin Tyukavin into a breakaway, who gently rolled the ball to Nicolas Ngamoele, and he clearly struck into the top corner from 13 meters.
After conceding a goal, the visitors stepped up their game and earned a couple of corners. After one of them, Andrei Lunyov secured the ball and quickly started the play by throwing it far to Gladyshev — Yaroslav almost reached the opponent’s penalty area, but was still stopped by a defender. A few minutes later, the young forward still found himself one-on-one with Selikhov after a great pass from Kutitsky, but sent the ball just above the crossbar. At the very end of the half, Gladyshev acted as an assistant, rolling the ball comfortably for Bitello to shoot — some centimeters were missing before the goal.
In the break, Igor Leshchuk replaced Lunyov in goal, and he had a lot more work to do. First, Igor prevented a breakaway by Theo Bongonda with a selfless dive, and a little later he parried a long shot by Jesús Medina, after which Aleksandr Sobolev missed the target. In this episode, Roberto Fernandez got injured and was replaced by Ivan Lepskiy.
On the other side of the field, the Ngamaleu–Tyukavin duo created another chance, but Mumi’s delicate pass to the empty corner turned out to be too strong. There was fierce fighting on the pitch, and Ngamaleu suffered from it most often, being replaced at the 68th minute by Vyacheslav Grulyov, while Denis Makarov came on for Gladyshev.
Spartak continued to put pressure. First, after a beautiful combination, Leshchuk won a duel in close combat against Alexander Sobolev. Soon after the corner kick, Daniil Zorin waited for the rebound, his shot was parried by Leshchuk, but Nikita Chernov was first on the rebound — 1:1. Already in stoppage time, the visitors could snatch victory: Pavel Meleshin took an angle to the goal and hit powerfully at the target — Leshchuk deflected the threat, taking the match into a penalty shootout.
And in it, Anton Zinkovsky hit the post with his first shot, and then there were no misses. The White-Blue players were impeccable: Vyacheslav Grulev, Denis Makarov, Viktor Okishor, Ivan Lepskiy and Luka Gagnidze.
Now the Dynamo players will begin targeted preparations for the start of the Russian Championship — in the first round, our team will host the Voronezh Fakel on Saturday, July 20. Purchase tickets and season tickets for VTB Arena on our website.
