The 9th of October 2016 has become a memorable day in the history of our Club. On this day the new ultramodern FC Krasnodar stadium was officially opened with a friendly game of Russia and Costa Rica national teams.
The game was played to a full house, and the supports filling the stands to capacity were able to truly appreciate the stadium’s comfort and cosiness. They also witnessed a most interesting game with abundance of scored goals. Two black-green players took part in it; FC Krasnodar defender Sergei Petrov and midfielder Yuri Gazinskiy spent full 90 minutes on pitch and looked rather convincing. The keeper Stanislav Kritsyuk stayed in reserve in this match.
The Russians, ushered by their supporters, went forward en masse, but their opponents did not sit it out in defense either. In the head-on football like that the Costa Rican team was more successful at first. The visitors achieved a 2-0 lead by the 29th minute after the two mighty shots by Randall Azofeifa and Bryan Ruiz. Soon afterwards Aleksandr Samedov was able to shorten the gap; he scored a goal with a point-blank header finishing a nice sweeping attack in which Sergei Petrov took an active part. Unfortunately with the first half almost over Vasili Berezutski scored an own goal, so both teams left the pitch for the half-time interval with the Costa Ricans winning 3-1.
The players of Stanislav Cherchesov made an impressive start in the second half, and on the 48th minute Artem Dzyuba left his marking player behind meeting an aimed low cross by Roman Zobnin. With one hour of the game done same Dzyuba scored an equalizer having won an aerial duel after a classy cross by Aleksandr Samedov.
Both teams were seeking a win in this match until the very full-time, and as late as in the injury time the fortune smiled on the visitors. Vasili Berezutski played rough in his own box against Joel Campbell, so the Uzbek referee Irmatov ordered a penalty kick. It was executed by the victim of the foul himself, and his strong and accurate shot into the bottom corner of the net brought Costa Rica a 4-3 win.