Defeat In Tyumen
The Geolog Stadium has made its debut in the Russian Premier League, allowing the city of Tyumen to see the top-notch competition. Ural’s home city of Yekaterinburg doesn’t have another certified arena to host the RPL matches, while their own Tsentralniy stadium has been closed for reconstruction. That’s why there was some strange feeling: most of the host team’s fans themselves were visitors on the neutral ground.
Lokomotiv’s losses are known: Ilya Abaev, Nemanja Pejcinovic, and Jan Durica. Alexander Sheshukov also suffered a minor injury and had to miss the game.
The match started with a blunder: Taras Mykhalyk, who acted as a central defender, tried to interrupt a pass to the box but due to the lack of understanding sent it home past Guilherme, making the score 1:0.
Of course, Lokomotiv rushed forward to score a leveler. Very soon a mess in Ural’s box helped Alan Kasaev find himself one-on-one with the keeper but the midfielder’s strike came straight into Zabolotniy’s hands. The Railwaymen went on looking for opportunities but that episode proved to be the most promising they managed to create early in the first half.
On 25 minutes Manucharyan tried to play like Robben: the forward carried the ball from a flank to the centre and rifled but narrowly missed at the upper corner.
Vitaliy Denisov soon responded: the defender went for glory from the corner of the box but a bounce off an opponent and then a post helped Ural keep their goal intact.
Late into the first half, Ural had another opportunity to double the lead: Khozin fired off a shot from just the metre’s distance but Guilherme demonstrated fantastic reflexes and stopped the ball with his leg!
After the restart, Ural again had a good opportunity to score. Lokomotiv assigned almost all of the team to attack while the Bumblebees caught the visitors on the counter-attack. Smolov rolled the ball out to Podberyozkin who had a go. Luckily, the ball shook the woodwork.
Fifteen minutes after the restart, Miodrag Bozovic decided it was time for a double substitution. Roman Pavlyuchenko came in for Skuletic, and Alexey Miranchuk replaced Boussoufa. But almost immediately Ural did manage to improve the lead. Alexander Sapeta stripped Fernandes off the ball in midfield and passed to space for Smolov where the striker gained speed and broke one-one-one with Guilherme. Fyodor nutmegged the keeper setting the final scoreline at 2:0.
Lokomotiv were desperate to get back into the game, but only gave Ural two more good scoring opportunities. Smolov and Podberyozkin could have made the score big but in the first episode Corluka blocked the shot, and in the second instance Guilherme smothered the ball after Vyacheslav’s attempt.
Lokomotiv kept trying to score but Ural put seven men behind the ball and did not allow to change the score.
Russian Football Championship. Matchday 23.
Ural - Lokomotiv - 2:0 (0:0)
Goals: Mykhalyk, 7 (own goal) (1:0). Smolov, 60 (2:0)
Lokomotiv: Guilherme, Mykhalyk, Denisov, Shishkin, Tarasov, Fernandes, Kasaev (Maicon, 78), Samedov, Boussoufa (Alexey Miranchuk, 57), Skuletic (Pavlyuchenko, 56).
Ural: Zabolotniy, Belozyorov, Khozin, Markov, Fontanello, Sapeta, Yerokhin (Asevedo, 75), Podberyozkin (Dantsev, 84), Yemelyanov, Smolov, Manucharyan (Yaroshenko, 90).
Yellow cards: Mykhalyk, 47. Sapeta, 81. Maicon, 82. Belozyorov, 88.
Referee: Vladimir Moskalyov (Voronezh)
April 13th. Tyumen. The Geolog Stadium.
Our website did live text commentary of the game, also available on Twitter.
