The first derby in history between Dynamo and Spartak remains with the red and white

Two consecutive capital derbies (with CSKA on May 24 and Spartak on June 15), which Dynamo played in the championship, were separated by three weeks - an international pause intervened for the games of national teams. For the blue and white, this break may have come in very handy.

Firstly, it was finally possible to breathe out after a tense period: starting from April 20, the Dynamo team played 6 matches, including difficult away games in Krasnoyarsk and Ryazan, as well as two Moscow derbies with Chertanovo and CSKA. And the home matches with “Wings of the Soviets” and “Zvezda-2005” would also be hard to call easy in terms of play and results.

Secondly, having shown excellent results throughout this period (4 wins and a draw), at the end of it the Dynamo team still stumbled. Yes, they lost to the undisputed leader of the season - both in terms of the number of victories and points, and in terms of goals scored, the army football players are now the best in the league. But still, this is the first defeat of the season, which finally interrupted the Dynamo team’s 8-match success streak (7 wins and a draw). Of course, this is just the first failure of the season, but it certainly didn’t hurt the team to have a little rest physically and psychologically.

Perhaps it’s also hard to think of a better opponent than Spartak to cheerfully return to the season. Here is the principle of the capital's derby, the first in the history of the two clubs, and geography - there is no need to leave Moscow anywhere, and the opportunity to unhook the daring newcomer of the season from the tail-end. Before the meeting in Sokolniki, Spartak was only 5 points behind Dynamo and even had a better goal difference - 17-5 versus 16-6 for the blue and whites. That is, not only is the Super League debutant really ready to fight with Dynamo for the top three, but he is also statistically superior to the blue and white, who were in second place in the table just a round ago. Here, of course, there was enough motivation even from the point of view of the tournament situation.

Well, we didn’t even need to mention the presence of ex-Dynamo players Karina Baklanova (also a former captain!) and Marina Fedorova in Spartak’s lineup. Everyone who at least more or less follows women’s football in Russia remembered and knew about this. The girls probably hiccupped the entire last few days before the match with Dynamo. They talked about it so often.

As it turned out, not in vain. The current Spartak players had their say in the game against their former club.

It all started with interesting changes in the Dynamo lineup. Firstly, after a long break due to recovery from injuries, Jose-Diana Pamen Tchato and Fauzia Najemba returned. Both players missed football and immediately made it into the blue and white starting line-up for the super derby with Spartak.

The second change is related to the personnel problems of the blue and white, which they still continue to experience. Due to a yellow card received in the match with CSKA, which became the fourth this season, Elena Shesterneva missed an important game. It’s not worth mentioning once again how important the football player has become for the performance of Sergei Lavrentiev’s team in recent games. The Dynamo coaching staff tried to replace her on the attack flank with Milena Nikitina, who last season, although she played mostly in defense, regularly scored and generally showed herself brightly in attacking actions.

The derby game, as befits such high-status matches, began without any build-up or reconnaissance. The teams got into the game all over the field almost from the first minutes and, looking ahead, it should be noted that the first derby in the history of the two teams turned out to be truly bright and exciting. At least you can't deny him entertainment.

Needless to say, the teams could exchange goals only in the first 10 minutes. First, Nikitina shot under the crossbar so that Spartak goalkeeper Elizaveta Shcherbakova had to immediately show her class to save her team. Well, then Spartak had a 100% chance: Kristina Cherkasova shot so that Diana Ponomareva could not do anything, but the ball, by a lucky chance, hit the post and went along the goal to the edge.

In the next 10 minutes, the situation repeated itself: Yulia Bessolova hit hard and very hard literally from the center of the Spartak penalty area, but the ball went above the goal, and then the red and white responded with another shot from Cherkasova under the crossbar. This time, Shcherbakova’s trick had to be repeated by Ponomareva, which she did superbly!

A slight lull in Sokolniki came only towards the middle of the half. It didn't last long. As soon as the girls rested a little and drank water during the official break, emotions began to surge with renewed vigor. It even came down to a goal against Dynamo, but it was canceled by the referees who saw Natalya Mashina being offside! In addition, corner kicks by Karina Baklanova appeared to help Spartak: almost every serve by the former Dynamo captain created some difficulties for Dynamo’s defense.

It is all the more surprising that the half ended without goals. Anyway, there was a shortfall in the first half of the meeting.

The teams began to improve immediately after the break. Unfortunately, our rivals did this. In the 50th minute, one of Marina Fedorova’s many serves in this game finally found Natalya Mashina, who happily buried it at the far post of Ponomareva’s goal. It should be noted here that the red-and-white striker found herself completely alone in front of the Dynamo goal.

However, the teams returned to the field from the locker rooms so charged by their coaches that it was not at all believed that this goal would remain the only one in the match. At least, from the Spartak results it was clear that they were not going to stop there, but the Dynamo team definitely didn’t want to remain without scoring goals for the second game in a row.

However, the severity diminished; the second half, in terms of various scoring dangers, turned out to be not as eventful as the first. Yes, Dynamo had good periods when the Dynamo players showed confident control of the ball and tried to overcome their bad luck in attack, but there was still not enough danger at the other goal.

The red and white opponents had all this in abundance, but they were simply unlucky. The same Machine had several more chances to increase the score. Two episodes were especially striking. First, the forward of the Russian national team was stopped in an incredibly spectacular and, most importantly, clean tackle in her own penalty area by Kamilla Abashilova, who had come on as a substitute shortly before. If it weren’t for her, it would have been one-on-one with Ponomareva.

In the second moment, the Machine, which at times simply ruled the Dynamo penalty area, hit both hard and accurately, but the ball was taken by the unfortunate crossbar, which will now remember this cannon strike for a long time.

But the quintessence of a real derby was the moment when, already in stoppage time, Diana Ponomareva ran to the opponent’s goal to take a corner. Considering that there were still about five minutes left to play, the Dynamo goalkeeper decided to help her teammates and take part in a potential scoring attack. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen: the Spartak team fought back and almost ran away to the empty Dynamo goal, so we had to stop them with tactical fouls.

However, they had no time to be upset, since a few minutes later Kristina Dushkova’s whistle still sealed their victory in the first derby with their principal rival. Well, after two consecutive defeats, our girls should be super motivated in the next round - in the home game against Rubin.

But now Spartak will have to take revenge in November.

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