The first round semifinal of the Fonbet Russian Cup Regions' Path, which was held in Orenburg, ended in a 4:2 win for the White-Blues.
As in the previous stage of the Cup, Marcel Lichka conducted an extensive rotation, fielding only three foreign players from the first minutes: Nicolas Marichal and Roberto Fernandez formed a pair of central defenders, and Eli Dasa was positioned to their right. The starting lineup of "Orenburg" turned out to be 100% different compared to the Sunday championship match.
The hosts started very actively and had several good approaches in the first minutes. The Dynamo players cooled their ardor in the very first focused attack. Daniil Fomin won the ball with a sliding tackle in the center of the field, Denis Makarov sent Yaroslav Gladyshev forward, who with a delicate pass set up Smolov, and Fedor brilliantly struck into the near corner!
The Orenburg team could have equalized quite quickly – Andrey Malykh delivered a precise cross to the head of Mohammad Gorbani, and the crossbar saved the Dynamo players. Soon, the Iranian midfielder stole the ball from Fernandez and rolled it to Justin Cuero, who struck powerfully at the goal – Anton Shunin confidently collected the ball.
A couple of minutes later Smolov created a similar chance for Makarov, and Denis' firm strike from the left has also been denied by the Orenburg goalkeeper. The Dynamo attacking midfielder's next attempt was even more dangerous – the ball hit the crossbar from Andrey Khodanovich's fingertips. A little later, Shunin performed no worse, denying a point-blank shot from Gorbani from a free kick. By the end of the half, Smolov waited for a defender's mistake, circled the goalkeeper, but did not hit the goal from an acute angle.
The second half started again by the pressure of the hosts: Gorbani almost hit the far corner from a turn, and then Shunin has shown his skills by neutralizing an effort from Jimmy Marin in a nice jump. However, Dynamo did not sit back in their own half of the pitch either. Vyacheslav Grulev was able to get round Khodanovich inside the opposing penalty area, but Mikhail Sivakov cleared his delivery off the goalmouth.
In the 60th minute, Licka completely renewed the attacking group, releasing Jorge Carrascal, Nicolas Ngamaleu, Luis Chavez and Konstantin Tyukavin. And Dynamo top scorer scored with his first touch. Carrascal outran several opponents on the left wing and delivered the ball perfectly to Tyukavin's head, who did not miss from 3 meters.
Immediately, Carrascal could have added a goal to the assist, but he did not convert a one-on-one run. Orenburg won back one goal – Cuero excelled in the aerial duel in our penalty box, Fernandez and Shunin did not figure out who should play on the rebound, and Gorbani jumped out from behind the Paraguayan international, piercing the ball into the net.
Fortunately, the White-Blues restored a two-goal lead quickly. Gabriel Florentin made a pass towards his goal, Fomin ran to the Orenburg penalty area, left the ball under the strike of Makarov, and Denis sent it into the net. Our team's fourth goal copied the third one: this time Carrascal capitalised on Oganesyan's poor pass, beat the defender and scored his debut goal for Dynamo.
Milan Majstorovic came to the pitch for the last 15 minutes, making his first appearance in 11 months in an official game and taking the left-back position. Orenburg players really did not want to lose with a big score and already in added time they scored their second goal – Jordhy Thompson drilled the ball into the net with an accurate long-range shot.
Dynamo have advanced into the second round semifinal of the Regions' Path, the draw of which will be held in the evening (our opponent may be Baltika or the loser in the Zenit vs Spartak clash). In the next RPL match, our team will face Pari NN on April 21.
