The encounter of the Mir Russian Premier League eleventh round that was held at VTB Arena, ended goalless.
There was only one forced change in Dynamo starting line-up in comparison with the previous match. Anton Shunin suffered a shoulder joint injury at the end of the fixture with Akhmat and will now miss 4-5 weeks. That's why Igor Leshchuk appeared in goal for the first time this season in the RPL game.
The encounter began accompanied by heavy rain, which lasted until the final whistle. In such conditions, long-range shots are always to be dangerous, and in the first half Dmitry Skopintsev, Roberto Fernandez, Luis Chavez and Konstantin Tyukavin tried to use them, but each time the ball flew above the crossbar.
The visitors played courageously and put active pressure on Dynamo players, who periodically made mistakes in passing. The most promising chance came to Ruslan Magal, who shot from the center of the penalty area when finishing a cross – Leshchuk took the ball in a confident jump.
At Dynamo, Tyukavin looked good at the helm. Dynamo centre-forward fought well on the right wing and rolled the ball to Nicolas Ngamaleu, but the Cameroonian couldn't beat the goalkeeper from a nice position. A little later, Kostya turned around in the final third of the pitch assisting on Jorge Carrascal, but the Colombian made a poor pass to Bitello in his turn.
Tyukavin had chances to score himself. By the half-time whistle, the young striker opened up to Fabian Balbuena's long–range diagonal pass and managed to shoot with his heel – Aleksandr Belenov did his best to deny this attempt. In the next episode, Carrascal stole the ball from a defender and led Kostya to Fakel goal. The Voronezh goalkeeper saved his team once again.
The second half followed the same scenario: Dynamo tried to rock the opponent's defense in a positional attack, while the visitors responded with fast counterattacks. So in 10 minutes, Balbuena and Fernandez received yellow cards. Bitello broke into the penalty box a couple of times, but first his shot was denied by Belenov, and a little later the Brazilian did not find the teammate.
In general, Dynamo were short of creative attacking actions, and already in the 58th minute Marcel Licka fielded Yaroslav Gladyshev, and then gambled on Fedor Smolov and Daniil Lesovoy. Soon this tandem organized the best chance in the match: Smolov took the ball and rolled it to Gladyshev who hit the net, but, unfortunately, from the outside. Few minutes later, the post prevented Fedor from scoring and left the hosts disappointed!
Lesovoy was also visible: at first the winger fired wide from 17 meters, and then he rolled the ball to an empty corner, where Gladyshev has been stopped by the defender. By the end of the match, the Voronezh side could have scored as well – Leshchuk denied Magal's effort from close range. In added time Dynamo increased a number of crosses to the opponent's penalty area but this tactics did not bring positive results.
Dynamo collected 17 points and stay sixth in the table. On October 21, Marcel Licka's men will play against Lokomotiv on the road.