Battle on the Volga: "Zenit" survived in stoppage time and squeezed past "Spartak" on penalties

      The match took place in front of a full house and with plenty of tense moments. The battle on the Volga for the Super Cup, held on July 18 at the Nizhny Novgorod stadium "Sovcombank Arena," lived up to expectations: with a full house of 42,000 spectators, "Spartak" and "Zenit" delivered a tense match filled with sharp moments. In the first half, the red-and-whites looked more active than their opponent, aggressively pressing, and in the 25th minute, Christopher Martins opened the scoring, being the first to react to a shot from Pablo Solari. After the break, "Zenit" stepped up, making a series of substitutions, and began to apply pressure on Alexander Maksimenko's goal. During the second half, there were two video reviews for possible penalty calls against "Spartak." The first did not result in a penalty, but the key episode occurred in stoppage time when, after VAR intervention, referee Evgeny Bulanov ruled that "Spartak" substitute defender Alexander Djiku handled the ball in a struggle with Alexander Sobolev. In the eighth added minute, the former forward of the red-and-whites confidently converted the awarded penalty, equalized the score, and celebrated the goal with gestures towards the fan sector of his former club. In response, "Spartak" fans began throwing objects onto the field, and a scuffle broke out in the center of the pitch involving players from both clubs, including substitutes. After the end of regular time, the organizers and the refereeing team decided to move the penalty shootout to the goal behind which the "Zenit" fans were located, abandoning the traditional coin toss for side selection. Subsequently, the Russian Football Union explained that this step was dictated solely by safety considerations. In the penalty shootout, "Spartak" midfielder Nail Umyarov missed the first penalty: the ball hit the crossbar after his shot deflected off the foot of Denis Adamov. In response, "Zenit" player Andrey Mostovoy hit the post, but then Adamov saved his team again, parrying a shot from Viktor Dmitriev. Ultimately, the Zenit players missed only once, while the Petersburg goalkeeper made two decisive saves, and the final point was put by Alexander Sobolev's accurate shot from the spot—4:2 on penalties. Thus, "Zenit" became the holder of the Russian Super Cup for the tenth time in history, while "Spartak" suffered its fifth defeat in the decisive match and remained with only one victory, dated 2017. After the final whistle, Spartak's head coach Juan Carlos Carcedo noted that his team controlled the game and generally executed the match plan, while he called the situation with the penalty shootout without a coin toss unprecedented in his career and preferred not to discuss it.

      Zenit coach Sergey Semak, for his part, acknowledged that the match was extremely nerve-wracking and emotional, with a lot of fighting and far from ideal play from his team, but emphasized that he was pleased with the character of the players, who managed to come back and take revenge for last year's defeat in the Russian Cup. Author: Vadim Yurchenko

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