The meeting will be held in Yekaterinburg and will start at 17:00 Moscow time.
EKATERINBURG, 4 April. /TASS/. The first finalist of the “playoff path of the Russian Premier League” Fonbet – the Cup of Russia on football will be determined on Tuesday in the match between Yekaterinburg Ural and Moscow Spartak. The meeting will take place at the Yekaterinburg Arena and will start at 17:00 Moscow time.
The first match between Spartak and Ural, held in Moscow on March 14, ended with the score 1:1. The goal of the red-and-white leader Quincy Promes (21st minute) was answered by the guests with an accurate shot by Yuri Zheleznov (67). As a result of this meeting, the expert referee commission under the President of the Russian Football Union (ESK RFU) admitted that the team of referees headed by Sergey Karasev mistakenly did not assign a penalty to the Urals in the 24th minute of the game.
After the winter break, Ural and Spartak played seven official matches each. Ekaterinburgers won two victories, drew three times, and also suffered two defeats in the last two meetings. Prior to that, the team had not lost in 16 official games. During the same period, Muscovites won and drew three times, and also lost in one championship match.
“Spartak” in the upcoming match will play in a far from optimal composition – due to a long suspension in the Russian Cup, goalkeeper Alexander Selikhov, as well as forwards Alexander Sobolev and Shamar Nicholson, will not be able to help the team. Also, the meeting in Yekaterinburg will be missed by defender and captain of the red-and-white Georgy Jikia, who is recovering from injuries, as well as midfielder Nail Umyarov. The participation in the match of the leader of the attacks of the Muscovites Promes, who, due to discomfort, did not get into the starting lineup for the Saturday championship game with Akhmat (0:0), is questionable. Midfielders Yuri Gazinsky and Igor Konovalov will not help Ural due to injuries.
According to Andrei Tikhonov, eight-time champion of Russia in Spartak, Ural will be the favorite in the upcoming match.
“Spartak has a lot of losses in the team in connection with previous games, I consider Ural the favorite in this match,” he said at a press conference at the Ural TASS information center. – Although Spartak is always our favorite team, it will be quite difficult. But most importantly, I want to finally see a full stadium, remember the World Cup, when it was a football holiday.
The match against Spartak will be the most attended in Yekaterinburg in the 2022/23 season. Ural’s press service told TASS on the eve of the game that over 21,000 tickets had been sold as of Monday. The Ural club noted that they expected 25,000 fans at the game. Before that, not a single game at the Yekaterinburg-Arena this season gathered 10,000 spectators.
About other matches and the Russian Cup format
The second finalist of the “playoff path of the RPL” of the Cup of Russia will be determined on April 5 in Moscow – the capital’s CSKA at the VEB Arena will host the Samara “Wings of the Soviets”, the meeting will begin at 19:30 Moscow time. The first game ended with a score of 2:2, with Jesús Medina (46) and Fedor Chalov (76, penalties) scoring goals for the army team, Vladimir Pisarsky (49) and Dmitry Tsypchenko (64) scored goals for the Samara team. Two more goals from Samarans defender Glenn Bale were not counted after using the video assistant referee (VAR) system – in the first case, offside was recorded, and in the second episode the ball did not completely cross the goal line after rebounding from the crossbar.
The March match of the Russian Cup was the third for CSKA and Krylia Sovetov in the 2022/23 season. Prior to this, the teams played twice in the RPL – the army team was stronger both in Samara (1: 0) and in Moscow (4: 0). Staffing problems of the clubs before the second semi-final are minimal. Defender Igor Diveev, who is recovering from injury, will not play for CSKA, and Krylia Sovetov will have to do without midfielder Denis Yakuba.
Tuesday will also see the match of the first stage of the semi-finals of the play-offs of the way of the regions, in which Dynamo Moscow will host Akron Togliatti. The meeting will start at 19:30 Moscow time. Another game of this stage will take place on April 6 – Krasnodar will play at home with Rostov.
In the 2022/23 season, the Russian Cup is being held in an updated format and consists of two stages: the first was held from August to December 2022 and was divided into the “RPL path” and the “regions path”. In the playoffs, the Double Elimination system was used for the first time (departure from the tournament after two defeats).
Teams that took first and second places in the group stage play in the “playoffs of the RPL path” matches. At each stage of the RPL Path Playoffs, the losing team drops down to the corresponding stage of the Regions Path Playoffs.
In the “playoffs of the path of the regions”, each stage is played out in two stages: at the first stage of the quarterfinals, the winners of the sixth round of the “path of the regions” played with the third teams of the group stage of the “path of the RPL”.
At the second stage of the quarter-finals, the winners of the first stage of this stage met with the losing teams in the ¼ finals of the “playoffs of the RPL path”. The same system will be applied in subsequent stages.
In the final match of the Russian Cup, which is to be held on June 11 in Moscow at the Luzhniki stadium, the winners of the RPL path playoff and the regions path playoff will play.
