The regular time of the Fonbet Russian Cup group stage first round match that was held at Nizhny Novgorod Arena, ended in a 1:1 draw.
Marcel Licka made a massive rotation in the squad. Ten players – Shunin, Leshchuk, Balbuena, Dasa, Skopintsev, Sazonov, Fomin, Normann, Ngamaleu and Smolov – stayed in Moscow to prepare for Saturday's match at Samara. As a result of those changes 21-year-old goalkeeper Ilya Kuptsov and 19-year-old right-back Stanislav Bessmertnyi made their debut for the first team. Sergey Parshivlyuk moved to the left wing, while Diego Laxalt started as a defensive midfielder.
Both sides showed courageous football at the beginning of the match and exchanged goals by the 10th minute. Firstly, Edgar Sevikyan interplayed with former Dynamo defender Dmitry Zhivoglyadov, entered the penalty box and fired low into the right bottom corner. Two minutes later Vyacheslav Grulev pressed on Pari NN centre-back Nikita Kakkoyev, who kicked the ball to Yaroslav Gladyshev and Dynamo winger executed his chance brilliantly.
Dynamo players ran into regular counterattacks very well. In the middle of the half Grulev missed the opportunity to score. Instead of shooting the centre-forward preferred to assist on Daniil Lesovoy who was interrupted by the defender. Then, Vyacheslav saw himself on the scoring position after Kakkoyev's poor header. However, Botnar managed to clear the ball.
The first half was marked by a number of obvious ball losses, but the teams didn't forget about creating a lot of chances. Sevikyan came closely to the goal by the end of the half. Mateo Stamatov crossed from the left and the Russian winger headed the ball over the crossbar.
Before the start of the second half the hosts made a triple substitution and continued to threaten Dynamo goal. Sevikyan made a swift run past two Dynamo players and rolled the ball to Nikolay Kalinskiy who fired wide. In his turn, Licka renewed the visitors' attacking group fielding Arsen Zakharyan, Denis Makarov and Vladislav Karapuzov.
The White-Blues took the ball under their control and were closer to pull out the victory. Karapuzov, Makarov and Zakharyan were active ahead, while Arsen hit the post from the 10-meter spot.
The winner was not determined in regular time and the teams started a penalty shootout. The hosts shot more accurately scoring four times, while Botnar saved Pari NN after Makarov's and Parshivlyuk's efforts – 4:3.
On Saturday the White-Blues will play on the road against Krylya Sovetov in the Mir Russian Premier League second round match.