Russian Dispatch: Week 26 - It's Now A Two-Horse Race

Two days ago, the fight for Russian Premier League title was between three teams. Now, with four weeks remaining, it’s a two-horse race, as Zenit St Petersburg's challenge came to an unexpected stop. The Gazprom-financed giants drew 2-2 at home with Spartak Nalchik on Sunday and are now six points off the top in third place.

Nalchik are fast becoming Zenit’s nemesis. Usually a dull, defensively-minded outfit and eternal relegation candidates, they are miraculously transformed into attacking empire each time they meet the team from St Petersburg. Even in 2007, Zenit’s championship year, Nalchik managed to give them a great fight, eventually losing 3-4 at Petrovsky. Last season, the southern minnows reversed the result, winning 4-3 in St Petersburg and pushing Zenit into crisis. They drew 2-2 in Nalchik later in 2008, and that was also the score in the first game between the two this year. The weekend result made it the third consecutive 2-2 draw between the rivals. That means Nalchik have scored no less than 13 goals in the last six games against Zenit. Amazing when you consider the fact that they netted just 70 times in 80 matches against all the other rivals in the last three seasons!

Zenit came into the Sunday game on a run of six consecutive wins, but they were halted in their tracks. Nevertheless, Vladimir Bystrov continued his own amazing personal streak. The international midfielder, never before known for his scoring prowess, can’t stop finding the net since his homecoming to Zenit from Spartak Moscow two months ago. Bystrov has scored in each of his six games back at Zenit, including the fifth minute strike against Nalchik from a brilliant Konstantin Zyryanov pass. All his previous goals led to victories, but this time it wasn’t enough and the visitors even came close to snatching the unlikely victory, hitting the post in the dying moments.

Spartak made it four wins in a row on Saturday, with a very straightforward 3-0 victory away to bottom-side Khimki who were officially relegated at the weekend. Brazilian top scorer Welliton, virtually unknown when he came to Russia from Goias two years ago, scored twice, making it 19 goals this season. Suddenly, somewhat bizarre calls to award him Russian citizenship in order to help Guus Hiddink's national team’s attack don’t sound too idiotic.

The three points helped Valery Karpin’s side to go top of the table for the very first time this season – but only for a little more than 24 hours.

On Sunday, Rubin Kazan refused to be dragged into a Camp Nou victory hangover and duly won 2-1 in the difficult surrounds in Rostov. The Russian press are eagerly discussing the amounts of money Rostov players were allegedly offered by Spartak officials for taking points off the champions. The most interesting player in that respect was Alexandr Pavlenko, the talented midfielder on loan to Rostov from Spartak. Pavlenko promised to demand a healthy bonus from his mother club for scoring again the Tatarians, but was injured early in the game and promptly substituted.

Alejandro Dominguez, recently courted by a number of Spanish and Italian teams (most notably Espanyol), opened the scoring for Rubin. Fellow Argentinian Christian Ansaldi, so impressive against Barcelona, added the second. The champions are still one point ahead of Spartak, and the fight is expected to go to the wire.

Elsewhere, the fight for Europa League places is starting to get really interesting, after FK Moscow beat CSKA Moscow 3-1 and leapfrogged them into the fourth place. The visitors raced into 3-0 lead by half-time in the embarrassingly empty and silent Luzhniki stadium and but for a great effort by CSKA keeper Igor Akinfeev, the result could have been astronomic. Juande Ramos, so often accused of being too cold on the bench during his time at Tottenham, looks absolutely frozen in Moscow.

Lokomotiv Moscow are now just one point off the Army Club in sixth place, after drawing 2-2 with Saturn thanks to Dmitry Sychev’s equaliser two minutes from time. The strike helped Loko to preserve their record as the only unbeaten team at home. Unfortunately, their away statistics are dreadful, but CSKA have a more difficult run-in and are in serious danger of losing out on European football for the first time since 2001.

Michael Yokhin, Goal.com