Victorious Start!

It’s been drizzling in the capital of Mordovia, the city of Saransk, for the whole day, but before the very start of the game it grew into a downpour. Although it failed to spoil the pitch at the Start Stadium: the artificial grass proved to be raintight.

The game tempo in the very beginning was quite moderate, with both opponents curious of one another. The ball remained in the midfield for most of the time. Only in the 13th minute came the first opportunity for Lokomotiv: Victor Obinna slammed the ball goalwards but missed just a little.

Three minutes later Mordovia’s midfielder Kirill Panchenko came close to Miroslav Lobantsev’s goal and decided to shoot, and he scored. The young goalie in the first official appearance on the top level in his career had no chance to stop it – the ball went sharply to the upper corner.

Anyway, the Railwaymen needed just 13 minutes to equalize. Another free kick close to Mordovia’s goal turned a success. Alexander Samedov played a high ball to Taras Burlak in the box who headed it goalwards but the keeper deflected it with his fists in front of himself and that was a mistake. Dmitry Torbinsky was just waiting for it and hammered the ball into the net.

As it turned out, Lokomotiv was just gaining speed. Four minutes later the Railwaymen took the lead. Dmitry Torbinsky got the ball standing with his back to the goal, passed to Magomed Ozdoev who shot powerfully scoring his first goal this season. The bad thing was that Torbinsky had to leave the pitch early as he got injured and couldn’t go on.

Even with Dmitry away, Lokomotiv kept attacking and soon scored a winner. Vedran Corluka showed both impressive tactical and heading skills: he knew where the ball was coming, waited when the defender would jump for the ball and a moment later did the same. A perfect header by the Croatian in just 38 minutes with Lokomotiv!

After this tremendous comeback – three goals in nine minutes – the game tempo went down.

The second half started slowly. And when it could seem the game was lost for Mordovia, they brought the intrigue back again. In the 62nd minute Osipov scored after the home team took a corner.

This failure energized Lokomotiv. In the 69th minute Alexander Samedov made an impressive run along the flank but his cross into the box was cleared by Muldarov. Three minutes later Denis Glushakov made a great attempt after a fine pass from Victor Obinna, but the curved ball went just off the post.

The last minutes of the game were quite nervous. All players of Mordovia went for it towards Loko’s goal but Lobantsev was all over the box.

In the 87th minute Lokomotiv was forced to play ten men against eleven. After a foul by a player of Mordovia, Magomed Ozdoev lost control over himself and hit back the offender. Promptly followed a red card and a disqualification for the next game.

During the 5 minutes of extra time Mordovia tried hard to equalize but Lokomotiv stood strong and won the game.

Mordovia - Lokomotiv 2:3 (1:3)

Goals: Panchenko, 16 (1:0). Torbinsky, 29 (1:1). Ozdoev, 33 (1:2). Corluka, 38 (1:3). Osipov, 62 (2:3).

Mordovia: Yurchenko, Muldarov, Stepanets (Mukhametshin, 89), Osipov, Simcevic, Kuleshov, Bobyor (Kontsedalov, 50), Rogov, Dujmovic (Kuznetsov, 83), Panchenko, Ruslan Mukhametshin.

Lokomotiv: Lobantsev, Burlak, Corluka, Shishkin, Eschenko, Glushakov, Samedov (Grigoriev, 90), Torbinsky (Zapater, 34), Ozdoev, Obinna, Pavlyuchenko (Caicedo, 81).

Yellow cards: Osipov, 69. Corluka, 92. Glushakov, 95. Simcevic, 96.

Red card: Ozdoev, 87.

Referee: Mikhail Vilkov (Nizhny Novgorod).

July 20. Saransk. The Start Stadium. 10 000 spectators.