Spartak continued their string of failures at the start of the season with a defeat and in the return leg of the third qualifying round of the Champions League against Benfica. Having lost to the Portuguese team last week at home – 0: 2, the Spartak team lost to it with the same score and away. Thus, at the group stage of the main continental tournament Russia will be represented only by St. Petersburg Zenit. Spartak will continue their European Cup performances in the Europa League.
The result of this confrontation was another argument for those who liked the version that domestic football is losing ground – along with the European Cup failures of previous seasons, a rapid drop in the table of coefficients of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), a fresh catastrophe of the country’s national team at the European Championship …
Russia has long been accustomed to the fact that at the group stage of the Champions League it has a fairly solid, at least not minimal, representation. In the last rally, there were not even two, as usual, but three domestic clubs – Zenit, Lokomotiv and Krasnodar. The only one last time she had to limit herself to 2008. Then Zenit also got a direct ticket to the main round, and Spartak, trying to get there through the qualification, also got cut in it – at Dynamo Kiev. Thirteen years later, history repeated itself: Petersburgers would take the rap for Russian football in the Champions League, Spartak did not succeed in joining them.
And the result of this confrontation was, of course, a bastard for those who believe that the arrival of a new coach – Rui Vitoria, who once made a name in Benfica – coincided with the beginning of a new crisis period in Spartak. And it is expressed not only in squabbles within the management, squabbles in social networks of people related to the most important decisions for the club, and unexpected resignations of prominent functionaries like sports director Dmitry Popov. It is expressed, among other things, in a gray game and gray results that at the Russian championship, in which last weekend Spartak lost to the newcomer Nizhny Novgorod, which, of course, at the international level, at which the red and white were forced to compete with an opponent on order is stronger than the citizens of Nizhny Novgorod.
In the return match against Benfica, Spartak looked quite decent for a while – but, it seems, solely because, having a huge margin of safety, the Lisbonians did not strive to tear the veins. Unhurried is the perfect definition to describe their game.
Slowness, however, did not prevent Benfica from controlling the ball. And when, in the middle of the first half, she suddenly wanted to step up the pace, it became terribly difficult for Spartak. It was a five-minute period of continuous Portuguese attacks, which the Spartacists met, deeply buried in the trenches, lining up almost on the goal line. And it’s even strange that they managed to fight back.
“Spartak” itself has created something interesting ahead of them at last already before the break. The heel pass of Zelimkhan Bakaev and Roman Zobnin was gorgeous, and Ayrton’s kick, to whom Zobnin threw the ball, was not bad. But the goalkeeper of “Benfica” Odysseas Vlachodimos coped with him … Meanwhile, in the Moscow match, “Spartak” in the same first half had not such a short segment, during which he, undoubtedly, surpassed the Lisbon players and even slightly hinted that ready to try to pass them. It smelled like nothing now.
And in the second half, Benfica still scored after another powerful swoop. This time, the Spartak team could not take the ball out of their penalty area, it went to Joao Mario, and he did not miss. Both teams spent the rest of the match in an energy-saving mode: Benfica understood that success would not go away from them, Spartak – that it was useless to dream of a breakthrough. And it is unlikely that his players were greatly upset by the second goal, conceded already in stoppage time: everything was clear anyway.
The defeat threw Spartak out of the Champions League, but he will continue to play in European competitions in the fall. The regulations sent the Spartak team to the group stage of the second-ranked continental tournament – the Europa League. In its current state, it suits him much more than the main tournament.
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