The first meeting of the quarterfinal of the RPL Path of the Fonbet Cup of Russia, held at the "VTB Arena", ended with a score of 2:1 in favor of the guests
Marcel Licka fielded a mixed lineup, resting Fabian Balbuena and Nicolas Ngamolet besides the four injured players. Mikhail Galaktionov, in turn, played almost with the "starting" squad, leaving only Ilya Lantratov and Dmitry Vorobyev on the bench.
The start of the meeting was dominated by the railwaymen, who missed two good chances in the first 10 minutes. First, Jerzino Nyamsi hit the post after a pass from Sergei Pinyaev, and a little later, Pinyaev himself missed the target after a cross from the flank.
El-Mehdi Maouhoub stood out for Dynamo, as always, with his activity. He outran Ilya Samoshnikov and crossed into the center of the penalty area, but Yaroslav Gladyshev missed the ball. Two great through balls were then delivered by Luca Gagnidze: the first ended with Maouhoub's shot being blocked at the last moment by a defender, and the second resulted in Jorge Carrascal's run-up to the visitors' goal, when the ball flew into the net from outside.
In the middle of the half, an unpleasant incident occurred — Roberto Fernández got injured and had to be urgently replaced by Aleksandr Kutitsky, who this time came on as a central defender
Soon, there was the usual exchange of goals. The success for the visitors came from a set piece: Alexey Batrakov crossed from the corner, and César Montes sent the ball into the far corner in a beautiful arc. Two minutes later, Denis Makarov's half-crossing, half-shot was converted into a goal by Maukhub, who jumped out from behind Nyamsi's back in time — 1:1!
The game became even more fun. Dmitriy Skopintsev burst into the penalty area from the left flank, beat Montes and shot from an acute angle at Anton Mitryushkin. Lokomotiv also had dangerous approaches: Batrakov hit the post after a rebound, and a little later Igor Leshchuk stopped the ball on the line after Timur Suleymanov's close-range shot.
During the break, Daniil Fomin replaced Luis Chávez. Skopintsev, who gave him the captain's armband, marked himself with a shot from outside the box — Mitryushkin was in place. Lokomotiv again converted a set piece. Batrakov curled well from a free kick towards the far post, where Pinyayev headed the ball to the top corner. A couple of minutes later, Montes took another dangerous corner kick and struck in mid-air over the crossbar
Dynamo players gradually moved the game away from their goal, but mostly threatened the goal from a distance — Makarov's and Gagnidze's shots went over. Arthur and Vyacheslav Grulev came on in the last 25 minutes. The Brazilian immediately showed some nice dribbling and took a tricky shot at the near corner — Mitryushkin coped with it with difficulty.
In the end, the blue-whites pressed the opponents to their goal but almost didn't create any real danger. The main chance was missed by Carrascal in injury time when he found himself alone with the ball in the opponent's penalty area, but his shot at the near corner was completely off target. In the counterattack, Vadim Rakov burst into the penalty area, shifted to the center and struck from under the defender — Leshchuk made a great save.
The return match will be held at RZD Arena on November 28, and in the next game, the blue-whites will play at home against Pari NN on Saturday, November 9, at 7:30 p.m. Buy tickets for VTB Arena on our website
