One of the most legendary matches in the history of team confrontation.
The match of the 5th round of the WORLD RPL between Spartak and Zenit is called the battle of the main contenders for the championship. In the past, teams have also met each other as favourites. One of the brightest matches took place on August 7, 1984.
Before the 22nd round of the USSR Major League, Zenit was ahead of Spartak by two points, but the teams were on a par with lost points. The winner would become the uncontested leader of the gold race.
Penalty missed
“Zenith” from the very beginning began to host on the field. The Muscovites, who smashed the Blue-White-Blues a couple of months before, seemed not to be ready for the match. The forwards did not receive the ball, the midfielders could not establish an interaction between the center line and the attack. Only Rinat Dasaev repelled blow after blow. Already in the third minute of the match, the Leningraders could open the scoring: forward Yuri Zheludkov went one on one with the Spartak goalkeeper, but, after hesitating, struck almost into the hands of Dasaev.
At the 25th minute of the match, the team from Leningrad opened the scoring. Vedeneev perfectly cut the opponent’s defense, and forward Vladimir Klementiev, skillfully picking up the ball, shot past Dasaev.
After such a slap in the face, the “red-whites” rebuilt and shot down the enemy’s attacking impulse, forcing Zenit to go on the defensive. Five minutes later, midfielder Sergei Shavlo scored a beautiful goal from the free zone into the far corner.
After the goal, Spartak seemed to have grown wings. Sergei Rodionov earned a penalty and it was a great opportunity for the Muscovites to take the lead. However, Yuri Gavrilov, who performed a penalty kick, decided to break through not by force, but to deceive the Leningrad goalkeeper. As a result, the ball hit exactly in the hands of Mikhail Biryukov. The first half ended with the score 1:1.
Zheludkov is the hero of the match!
In the first minutes of the second half, the psychological superiority of Zenit was felt. The opponent, after a failure with a penalty kick, fell apart a little.
In the 63rd minute, the Blue-White-Blues earned a free-kick. Zheludkov shot very hard from the left, and the ball, flying around the Spartak wall in a vertical arc, hit the right corner of the goal. Zenit took the lead, but the answer of Spartak was not long in coming. Thanks to Spartak’s trademark “walls”, Yevgeny Sidorov flew into the penalty area with lightning speed and equalized the score.
Less than 20 minutes remained until the end of the match. The game became more and more rough. For a daring game, Klementyev received the second yellow in the match. “Zenith” remained in the minority.
Yuri Zheludkov / Photo: © FC Zenith”
It seemed that the Leningraders would no longer be able to snatch a victory – they would have to keep a draw! However, luck was on the side of the guests. The Blue-White-Blues earned a free-kick not far from the Spartak goal. It was Zheludkov’s favorite point for hitting. As a result, the striker from Leningrad scored a double and became the hero of the match. Muscovites in the remaining ten minutes tried to impose a fight, but Zenit stood on the defensive with the whole team and pulled out a long-awaited victory.
– Spartak has always been a strong irritant for all of us. For the last year and a half, we played unsuccessfully with him, and we wanted to get out of this streak of bad luck. The mood of the guys was the most combative, and the team was ready for battle, – recalled the central defender Alexei Stepanov in the book “Our Zenit”.
That year, Zenit, which had previously taken places at the bottom of the standings, won the coveted championship. After 40 years, the Petersburgers have become the main team in Russia, but now their positions have been somewhat shaken. “Spartak” has good chances to interrupt the “golden” series of a principal rival.
***
Watch the live broadcast of the match of the 5th round of the MIR RPL Spartak – Zenit on August 20 from 18:30 Moscow time on the Match TV channel, as well as on matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru websites.
Xenia Antonova
Read also:
2023-08-19 19:14:34
#Zenit #heroically #snatched #victory #Spartak #Moscow #removal #didnt #hurt