Goals: Joãozinho, 19, from penalty (0:1), Lungu, 59 (Khozin, 1:1).
FC Ural Yekaterinburg: Zabolotnyi, Dantsev, Fontanello, Ottesen, Khozin, Fidler, Sapeta, Yaroshenko, (Acevedo, 46) Yerokhin, Podberyozkin (Oganesyan, 75), Lungu.
FC Krasnodar: Dykan, Jędrzejczyk, Granqvist, Sigurðsson, Kaleshin, Gazinskiy, Akhmedov (Ari, 78), Pereyra (Laborde, 70), Bystrov (Izmailov, 71), Joãozinho, Wánderson.
Yellow cards: Fidler, 34 (foul play), Ottesen, 78 (foul play) – Akhmedov, 53 (foul play), Granqvist, 87 (foul play),
Referees: Bezborodov, Golubev (both from Saint Petersburg), Gavrilin (Vladimir).
10 Aug 2014. Yekaterinburg. Tsentralnyi Stadium. Clear. 30 degrees. 8 200 spectators.
The hot weather that settled in Yekaterinburg could be definitely compared with the heat in Krasnodar itself. The Bulls and FC Ural took the field of the Tsentralnyi Stadium at 30 degrees Celsius. The line-up of Oleg Kononov’s squad had minimal changes from the one in the opening fixture of Russian league championship against FC Lokomotiv Moscow; in that particular match Akhmedov who had been injured during the pre-game training session stayed in reserve, and now he took his position in the center of midfield, which had been given to Pomerko in Moscow. As for the home team, their starting 11 lacked any actual forwards, and the role of “a spear point” was played by Erokhin, a nominal half-back.
However, it was the Uraltsy who started the match in more active way and after 3 minutes of play delivered the first shot on goal – Fidler shot hard but off target. The Krasnodar team in the opening was in no hurry as if they were showing with their play that they would have enough time to do everything and the goals had nowhere to escape. And indeed, the goal on 19th minute by the away team came literately out of nowhere, or to be precise, out of Wánderson’s individual mastery, who skillfully handled a not so easy ball after the pass from Akhmedov, and out of inaccurate actions by Fontanello, FC Ural’s rookie, who bought the Brazilian’s feint and grappled him in the corner of his own box. Joãozinho executed a penalty kick in his own style – accurately and in cold blood.
After that the Bulls, who had been already not so active in moving forward, gave away the initiative completely to the opposition and focused on defense. It might be said that they switched to playing a second fiddle but such a game implicates counterattacks, and before the half-time the supporters did not see any for FC Krasnodar’s part. What they saw was a massive advance by the Bumblebees though; their raids again and again crushed against the generally reliable defensive line of the Bulls. Sometimes it was Dykan’s turn to play, but he did it just coming off the line. The Uraltsy twice had a chance to disturb him, but on the 24th minute Sapeta shot over the crossbar out of the box, and 5 minutes before the half-time Ottesen also missed the target striking with a header.
Certainly during the half-time Oleg Kononov urged his players to be more active, but the second 45 minutes started with even more insistent attacks of FC Ural. However in one of the episodes the home team made a mistake in their half of the pitch giving away the ball to Krasnodar players, but Wánderson and Joãozinho were noble enough to reject the gift.
Alas, it served to no good, because soon the Bumblebee finally managed to sting the Bull that was rather heavy and too inert that evening. The performance of Orange and Black team was visibly brightened up by Acevedo who came in on a sub; their quick attack developed on the right flank, Khozin centered the ball to Chisamba Lungu and the latter didn’t get drawn together with Granqvist and made a lethal far corner shot.
Only after this the Krasnodar team roused themselves and started to play more aggressively. But the Yekaterinburg squad caught the wave after scoring an equalizer and didn’t even think of solely holding the score. The game became two-edged and its tempo increased significantly, in which connection the Bulls were given extra speed by Laborde and Izmailov who came in on a sub almost simultaneously. On 73rd minute Joãozinho tried an aimed shot out of the box, but Zabolotnyi reacted to it and parried the ball. In 4 minutes the goalkeeper of the home team also managed to counter the shot by Laborde. On the 82nd minute in reverse it became hot at Dykan’s goal, but Kaleshin in a self-sacrificing dive did not allow Erokhin to shoot from a killing position, after which both participants of the episode required rather long interaction with the medical teams.
In the end Ari appeared at the spearhead of FC Krasnodar’s attack, but the will of both teams to snatch the victory drowned in a chaos of multiple fights and fouls. Ultimately the whistle of Bezborodov, the ref, registered a quite reasonable draw which is already second for our team in the opened Russian Championship. As for now the Bulls have been more successful in the international arena than in the domestic one.