Dynamo lost to Zenit in Novogorsk

A week ago, with a victory over the season outsider Rubin Kazan (2:0), the Dynamo players interrupted a not very pleasant streak of two unsuccessful matches in a row. Although the defeats were minimal - twice 0:1 - the blue and white suffered them in the capital's derbies: first from the 2023 Super League vice-champions WFC CSKA, and then from the debutants of the tournament, Moscow Spartak. Considering that the meeting with the red and white was the first in the history of the confrontation between the two clubs, it is doubly offensive.

So the game with the worst team in the championship so far, in order not to fall into depression at all, arrived just in time. And although the blue-and-whites didn’t look like undisputed favorites in the game, the winning 2:0 with great free-kick goals from Fauzia Najjemba and Elina Samoilova was the best possible way to cheer yourself up after an unsuccessful series and recharge yourself with optimism for the next match.

After all, in a week our girls faced another test. Of course, the match with the reigning champion from St. Petersburg, which took place on Saturday in Novogorsk, looked like that very “lice test”, the result of which can determine a lot this year. First of all, from the point of view of forming the psychology of winners, without which trophies are not won.

As we remember, this season our team was finally able to break what was probably the most offensive streak for us – without victories in games with clubs from the “Big Three” of Russian women’s football. But if our girls interrupted the series of failures with Lokomotiv Moscow in brilliant style at the start of the season, defeating the railway workers at home in March (3:0), then it was much more difficult to end the same unpleasant history of matches with the club from St. Petersburg. To begin with, Sergei Lavrentyev's team had to score - after all, before Saturday's meeting with Zenit, Dynamo could not only beat the team from the banks of the Neva, but even score against them.

Once again, the team has seen changes in its starting line-up. Kristina Komissarova returned to the start, the triangle in the center consisted of Tijana Matic, Elina Samoilova and Elena Shesterneva, and the most serious change occurred in defense: the place of the injured Ksenia Kubichnaya and Jose-Diana Pamen Tchato, who replaced her in the last games, was taken by Yulia Bessolova. Before this, the captain acted precisely in the center of the field, paired with Samoilova.

And if such changes in the center of defense did not radically affect the team, then it is definitely worth making allowances for the heat in Novogorsk. Considering that the teams had to play on an artificial field, which clearly did not add any freshness, it was very difficult for the female players of both teams at times.

However, in the opening of the meeting this did not seem to be felt. Both Dynamo and Zenit turned on a high tempo from the first minutes, operating at such speeds that no one expected from them before the starting whistle.

True, this did not bring any chances at the goal. The teams exchanged their first blows closer to the 20th minute of the match.

Towards the middle of the first half, the teams went for a break - a technical one, of course: to drink water and cool off a little in the shade on the edge of the Novogorsk field. The nature of the game after this break did not change much, but Zenit began to look more interesting, which gradually began to take the initiative and get closer to the Dynamo goal.

At the same time, the guests also had chances: until the end of the half, Nelly Korovkina and Gabriela Grzywinska had opportunities for shots (not for goals), but even for them it did not look like missed opportunities.

Our team responded with a moment performed by Nazhemba just before the whistle for the break: the Ugandan outwitted the St. Petersburg defenders in the penalty area, crossed into the center of the goalkeeper’s goal, and none of the Dynamo players were there.

That’s where we finished, going to rest in the locker rooms from the Novogorsk carpet blazing under our heels.

The break was over, and once again the Dynamo fans saw a familiar situation: not even five minutes had passed when the opponent scored... At the 49th minute, Zenit's Polish footballer Gabriela Grzywińska sent another goal of hers this season into the opponents' net, and Dynamo repeated the all-too-familiar trick – they conceded almost immediately after the break. It was the same against CSKA at the end of May, and the same thing happened two weeks ago in the game against Spartak...

Considering that Zenit had conceded only 1 (one) goal in 11 Super League matches this season, it would have been naive to expect that their defense would collapse in the game against Dynamo. But the fact that the white-and-blues should have scored and equalized at the 64th minute, but Galina Geybieva, who found herself absolutely alone in front of Zenit's goal, fired the ball into the Novogorsk forest behind Natalia Voskobovich, instead of the net...

If we recall that Tiyana Matić failed to score just a minute before the first goal by the St. Petersburg team, what happened next was just some kind of mystique. Three minutes after Geybieva's crucial moment... Zenit scores again. The Zenit girls launched a counterattack: Kiki hit the post, and the Costa Rican player by the surname of Chinchilla finished the rebound into the empty net. As they say, the furry animal crept up unnoticed, only for the Dynamo players it turned out to be not a chinchilla at all.

There was almost half an hour of pure playing time left until the end of the match, but probably not even the Dynamo players themselves believed in the possibility of a comeback against such a Zenit. Although, of course, they were not planning to give up. The same Nazhamba tried to pull the team into the attack and finally score against the St. Petersburg club. But Nazhamba alone was not enough, Geybieva did not use her moment, and Williams and Shesternyova did not manage to create their own chances.

In the added time, the white-and-blues literally walked on the edge of a rout, but Diana Ponomaryova saved them – the Dynamo goalkeeper turned a dead ball into a corner after a header from a Zenit player.

Well, no new checkmarks appeared on the list of tasks for the game against Zenit, but that's what they are, the reigning Super League champions. And for our team, the fight for the top three, of course, does not end here.

For full information on the starting lineups and events of the match, see the match center.