"Dynamo" and "Zvezda-2005" delivered a thriller, but the victory was taken by the white-and-blues.

Will Dynamo have enough emotions for the match with the Perm team after such a draining and emotionally costly game that happened in Ryazan a week ago - perhaps the main question that worried Dynamo fans before the start of the meeting in Novogorsk. Our girls have never experienced such an emotional shock as in the meeting with Ryazan-VDV this season.

Yes, there was a very bright victory at home over Lokomotiv (3:0), the first over a team representing the Big Three. There were difficult, hard-fought, gritted-teeth victories in Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don and Krasnoyarsk. Even the meeting with the outsider “Wings of the Soviets” was not an easy walk, where the team was pulled out by captain Yulia Bessolova, for which she received her well-deserved awards - the best player and the author of the best goal of April according to the results of the fan vote. There was finally a draw in the important derby with Chertanovo, where Sergei Lavrentiev’s team had to win back during the season for the first time this season, and they coped with this task.

But it is simply impossible to describe what happened in Ryazan in letters, even if they form very vivid and loud words. Let’s just remember: super-strong victories with goals scored in the last minutes of the match have been Dynamo’s trend over the last two weeks, and not only in the performance of the women’s team.

If Dynamo fans really wanted to take a short break after such emotional swings, then their closest opponent was the least suitable for this. The main match in this pair so far took place in November last year, when Dynamo and Zvezda 2005 fought each other for 4th place in the final table and met head-to-head in Novogorsk. Then the Perm team won, and one of the goals, and the winning one, was scored by none other than Liana Kotelnikova, the leader of Dynamo in the silver season of the Youth League 2022 and one of the favorite football players among Dynamo fans. It’s all the more offensive that the midfielder was and is still on loan at the Ural club. Of course, there are plenty of such stories in football, and yet, still...

And now there are even more Dynamo players in Zvezda 2005: in the off-season, Ksenia Kuzishchina and Anastasia Pervushina went on a loan trip with Kotelnikova. So suddenly, in one Super League club, a real Dynamo trio of midfielders was formed. One can only be glad for the girls that they have playing experience and regularly take to the field as part of Elena Suslova’s team, but I wouldn’t want to receive new greetings in the form of goals.

The early start of the match (it started at 12:00 in Novogorsk), changes in the starting lineup (Diana Ponomareva returned to goal, Maria Digurova to the defensive flank, and Lamunat Mustafaeva started for the first time) did not prevent Dynamo from showing almost his best first half performance this season.

Here they managed to withstand the initial onslaught of the Perm players (they even hit the crossbar in the 8th minute!), and to establish the game in attack themselves, which was rewarded for the blue and white with a great goal from Elena Shesterneva. In the 19th minute, the Dynamo attacker, being outside the Zvezda 2005 penalty area, shot tightly on the fly in such a way that it left no chance for the visiting goalkeeper Margarita Shirokova!

10 minutes later the beauty repeated itself - and again with the participation of Shesterneva. This time Elena acted as an assistant - she received from Mustafaeva what seemed to be a not very convenient pass, but she herself gave such a pass to Komissarova that Kristina was left in splendid isolation in front of the Zvezda 2005 gate and did everything right – 2:0!

The idea that arose at the beginning of the match that the Dynamo team were playing their best first half was confirmed just half an hour after the starting whistle. At least, not only Dynamo fans, but also probably some of the blue and white football players went into the break with these thoughts. As usual, and certainly this season, it’s the other way around: Sergei Lavrentiev’s team doesn’t have the most impressive first half of the game, but in the second it transforms and works wonders. It is enough to rewatch the match a week ago in Ryazan.

But now the poles seem to have changed, and Dynamo again surprised many.

During the break, there were more Dynamo players on the field, in the sense that in addition to Ksenia Kuzishchina, who started, Anastasia Pervushina came on as a substitute. Both of them play for Zvezda 2005, but they do so on loan and still belong to Dynamo.

And that's where it started. In the 58th minute, Helena Bozic played carelessly in her own penalty area and, along with a warning, also earned a penalty against her team. Veteran of Russian women's football Olesya Kurochkina calmly implemented it and reduced the gap behind Zvezda 2005. Less than three minutes had passed before the “stars” equalized the score, and this was done by none other than Anastasia Pervushina, who pushed the ball into the Dynamo goal in the middle of the Dynamo penalty area. This would be very ironic indeed, considering that in the previous match between the two teams, one of the goals of Zvezda 2005 was also scored by Dynamo football player Liana Kotelnikova.

But - as in the game with Chertanovo - the blue and white were lucky again. A few moments after the ball ended up in the Dynamo goal net, head referee Alexandra Ponomareva canceled it - offside!

True, there were still more than 30 minutes left to play and the Perm players could easily score their goals. The Dynamo team could only thwart these attacking impulses of the guests, and sometimes simply fight back. It became easier only in the 75th minute, when Zvezda 2005 defender Anastasia Akimova was sent off from the field for two yellow cards. At this point it became clearly visible that both teams were tired and they had to play almost with all their strength. If the Ural team had been a little fresher and if this removal had not happened, it remains to be seen how this nervous thriller in Novogorsk would have ended.

Well, as they say, the strongest are lucky, and Dynamo continues its journey to the top, to which there is literally one step left.

For complete information about the starting lineups and events of the meeting, see the match center.