Kazan is a delight! Rubin returned to the RPL with a brilliant draw in Moscow

The Russian Premier League is back on our screens, and that’s good news. Krasnodar and Dynamo presented a brilliant confrontation in the opening match, Ural sensationally beat CSKA, and Pari NN showed a very high-quality game in the match with Zenit, despite the defeat. The clubs have raised a fairly high level of quality right from the initial meetings. The match between Lokomotiv and Rubin promised to be no less exciting.

Mikhail Galaktionov’s team underwent a rather pleasant transformation last season. Before the winter break, Lokomotiv was in the play-off zone, but in the spring the club changed dramatically and even received the status of the best team in the second half of the season. In particular, brilliant newcomers helped the club out of the crisis – Artyom Dzyuba, Sergey Pinyaev and Maxim Glushenkov became a very high-quality reinforcement. In the summer, the red-greens kept all their leaders, and even brought in promising Vladislav Sarveli from Sochi, as well as a very high-quality defender Ilya Samoshnikov from Rubin.

Rubin, in turn, were eliminated from the first division. Over the past year, Kazan shook from side to side, Leonid Slutsky left the club, he was replaced by Yuri Utkulbaev, and then Rashid Rakhimov. Despite all the difficulties, the team became the best in the First Division and received a direct promotion to the class. In the summer, the Kazan leadership did not skimp on strengthening. In particular, Rubin’s ranks were replenished with high-quality legionnaires. Today they dictated the team’s play.

Salam, RPL!

From the first minutes Rubin began to pleasantly surprise the mass audience, who had not followed him for the past year. Kazan was loaded and tuned to the gates of rivals. Including there were some surprises in the composition: for example, 18-year-old defender Ilya Rozhkov appeared at the base. It was he who, in the third minute, ran up the wing and found another newcomer in the penalty area.

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Mirlind Daku came to us from Slovenia and immediately decided to show what she is capable of. The striker adapted well to the ball, emphatically hit it and scored in the first match for Kazan.

It’s time for Europe!

Lokomotiv players were obviously not ready for the guests to start the match from a strong position. Muscovites had to adjust to this pace. And they did it very well. Dupin’s scoring moments followed with pleasing regularity for the fans gathered at the stadium today.

A minute later, a slight panic began in Rubin’s penalty area after a shot in the direction of Dziuba, the ball flew out to the edge of the penalty area. There, Tiknizyan, the defender of the Armenian national team, immediately rushed after him, hit with a very high quality and leveled the score.

FC locomotive

Thus, Nair has already scored in three RPL matches in a row. As of 2023, the defender has 5 goals in 13 RPL matches — more than Smolov (4), Sergeev (4), Cassierra (4), Komlichenko (3) or Tyukavin (3). It seems that the Lokomotiv player really needs to go to Europe, where he has been matched for a month.

The rest of the team spent in the fight for the ball. Basically the match was played in the center of the field, but at the same time both teams periodically exchanged shots that were not very dangerous. The epilogue was to come in the second half.

Rescuers “Loco”

The start of the second 45′ was left completely to the guests. There was a feeling that the pattern of the mid game was being mirrored. This time it took Rubin 13 minutes to take the lead. The author of the first goal scored, Daku, acted as an assistant in this episode, found Fameye in the penalty area, and the Ghanaian, in turn, struck with great quality and accuracy.

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After Kazan stepped forward, they sat down noticeably. It was evident that Lokomotiv had a better pre-season and the team was more ready to fight the full 90 minutes. The club’s real wildcards were Izidor and Samoshnikov, who equalized 3 minutes before the end of regular time. The Russian made a chic serve, and the French caught Dupin by mistake and knocked him down.

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Thus, the scoreboard lit up the score 2:2. And so it remained until the final whistle. First draw this season, but what a brilliant one. Both Lokomotiv and Rubin showed top-level football, which is a pleasure to watch. We hope the teams continue to show such quality play this season.