The youth team of "Dynamo" played a draw with "Strogino" in the final match of the first stage.

Having lost to Zenit St. Petersburg (0:2) in the previous match, Dynamo put themselves in a situation where the meeting with Strogino acquired increased importance. Our team had to not lose (or lose with a difference of no more than two goals, but, of course, no one thought about that) in order to reach the second stage of the Youth League from second place (the first place had long been taken by Zenit) and continue to fight for medals. And the first round game in Moscow, when the blue and white won a confident away victory (4:1), spoke precisely in favor of Dynamo.

“Strogino”, in general, is a rather convenient and passable opponent for our team. Last season, Dynamo scored 4 out of 6 points in a head-to-head confrontation with Stroginki (home win and away draw), and this season they scored 3 out of 3, so it was expected that the final meeting of the preliminary stage should have followed a similar scenario.

There are three changes to the starting line-up. Valeria Azeeva returned to action, having been injured in the second round match with Zenit and missing three games. Also, Polina Golubeva played in defense instead of Arina Volobueva, and Ekaterina Sergeeva played in midfield instead of Varvara Demidova.

The game started without any build-up. Both the hosts and the guests ran forward from the first minutes - the latter sought to score an early goal and seize the initiative, the former stuck to their scheme and looked for their moments in attack. And the attack worked quite well. Already in the third minute, Sergeeva launched a targeted shot from outside the penalty area, but the ball went just a few centimeters from the post.

It must be said that Strogino appeared in a completely different guise - compared to the first game, it was a daring, active and fast team that clearly knows what it wants. However, the Dynamos did not allow the opponents too much: most of the guests’ attacks were choked on the approaches to the penalty area by Taranchenko, and did not pose much of a threat to the blue and whites.

By the middle of the half the game opened up. Strogino almost opened the scoring, taking advantage of a mistake by Dynamo's defense, but the hosts responded with a very dangerous attack, which ended with a powerful shot from Yakovenko - unfortunately, it hit the visiting goalkeeper Poletakhin. Next, Sergeeva had a great chance to score, but Katya failed to overthrow the Strogino goalkeeper - the ball went just above the goal.

The Dynamos were getting closer and closer to the Stroginok penalty area and, frankly speaking, a goal was brewing. However, every time there was just a little missing - the last pass, the last touch, and somewhere even accuracy. The hottest episode occurred in the 37th minute, when Petrova hit the post, and in the second-paced attack, Sergeeva was literally cut down in the penalty area, but the referee gave the command to continue playing.

As a result, the first half, full of events (which is worth four yellow cards at once), ended in a goalless draw.

A fresh Kolesnikova came out for the second half, replacing Azeeva. She kept Sergeeva company in the center of the field and with her activity added power to the attack. However, the guests did not think of giving up, but, on the contrary, began to act more aggressively and boldly. Already in the first minutes of the second half of the meeting, they had several wonderful chances, but their execution let them down, although Strogino could have easily opened the scoring. For our team, this was a wake-up call - we had to pay special attention to defense.

If the planers missed out on 100% opportunities over and over again, the dynamos didn’t really create those same opportunities. There were interesting attacks and strikes, for example, performed by Razvorotneva and Sergeeva, but it is hardly possible to call them truly scoring.

To be fair, it should be noted that our team did not look very active in attack, and the opponent constantly found loopholes in defense. If the dynamos did fire, it was sporadically, but this was clearly not enough. For the last 15 minutes, the Dynamo coaching staff released three new players at once: Gunin, Volobuev and Linnikova replaced Golubeva, Petrova and Razvorotneva.

To summarize: Dynamo did not concede, scored one point and guaranteed itself access to the second stage of the Youth League from second place, where it will continue to fight for medals. Strogino also did not concede, and with 7 points the Moscow team will play for 11-20 places.

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