The encounter of the Russian Premier League 19th round that was held at VTB Arena, ended in a 2:1 win for the White-Blues.
Dynamo starting line-up for the 2024 first official game was the same in comparison with the friendly match against CSKA one week ago. Igor Leshchuk became the number one, Sergey Parshivlyuk took the left-back position, while Jorge Carrascal replaced Daniil Fomin in the midfield.
The game was intense since the first minutes, but for the time being, the teams played carefully in defense. In the 12th minute, individual skills made the difference – Bitello dragged the ball down the left wing and shared it with Carrascal, who made the spurt in his turn. Bypassing four defenders, the Colombian international rolled the ball to Bitello, who hit the target in one touch from several meters away.
Having taken the lead, Dynamo continued to dynamically rock the defense of the Railwaymen. Most of the attacks fell on the left wing, where Bitello created. Luis Chavez remembered with a good long–range shot – Ilya Lantratov denied it on the line.
The visitors organized their first potentially dangerous attempt at the 26th minute – after a free-kick the ball reached Mario Mitai at the far post, from where the Albanian fired into the crossbar from a few meters out. The White-Blues did not allow any more danger at their goal for the rest of the first half.
A couple of minutes later, Konstantin Tyukavin skillfully redirected a pass from Eli Dasa to Bitello, who was fouled by Yevgeny Morozov at the penalty line. Chavez sent the ball into the wall from the free-kick. Then, Carrascal contributed to Bitello's breakthrough twice, who dangerously crossed to the penalty box, where Tyukavin and Denis Makarov just missed reaching the ball. Another smart pass from Jorge almost set Makarov one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but Denis was beaten by Lantratov.
During the break, the visitors made two substitutions that sped up their play. Timur Suleymanov scored an equaliser at the very beginning of the second half, converting a cross from Nair Tiknizyan, but, fortunately, from an offside position. Right away, Mitai found himself near the goal, and his pass was intercepted by Roberto Fernandez at the last moment.
After a short break, the White-Blues responded with a swift attack. Makarov passed to the center, Carrascal found Tyukavin in the penalty area and the talented youngster turned around, rolling the ball back to Makarov. Denis drilled it into Lantratov's net from a few meters out – 2:0.
In the last 15 minutes, Yaroslav Gladyshev and Dmitry Skopintsev came to the pitch, replacing the tired Makarov and Parshivlyuk. In one of the episodes Skopintsev played brilliantly at his own goal, taking the ball off the foot of Sergey Pinyayev. Dynamo players regularly broke through towards Lantratov's goal, but they lacked the accurate pass in final stage.
And in the 84th minute, Lokomotiv scored – substitute Rifat Zhemaletdinov fired precisely into the bottom corner, making the end of the game very nervous. Already in added time, Leshchuk pulled off a dangerous shot from Vladislav Sarveli into the near bottom corner. Lantratov went to our penalty box for a corner, after which Laxalt ran towards the visitors' goal, but could not make a decisive pass.
The White-Blues saved a crucial win and reduced the gap to the leading Krasnodar to 4 points. With 35 points, Dynamo are in third place in the table. In the next round match, our team will face Akhmat Grozny at VTB Arena on March 9. Purchase tickets on our website.
