MOSCOW, 27 February. /TASS/. The Fonbet – Russian Football Cup playoff program will continue on Monday. On this day, the return matches of the ¼ finals of the “playoff of the path of the Russian Premier League” Ural – Rostov (beginning – 17:00 Moscow time) and Spartak – Lokomotiv (20:00 Moscow time) will take place, as well as the game of the first stage of the ¼ finals of the playoffs of the path of the regions, in which the St. Petersburg Zvezda and Pari Nizhny Novgorod will meet (14:30 Moscow time).
This season, in the playoffs of the Russian Cup, for the first time, the Double Elimination system will be used (departure from the tournament following two defeats). It was introduced in order to saturate the competition calendar following the decision of the executive committee of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to remove Russian clubs and teams from participating in tournaments under its auspices for the 2022/23 season.
The central match on February 27 will be the derby Spartak – Lokomotiv at the Otkritie Bank Arena. The first game between these teams, held on February 22, ended with a minimal victory for the red-whites (1: 0), midfielder Danil Prutsev became the author of the winning goal. The holding of the match was in doubt due to weather conditions, but the freeze at the RZD-Arena an hour before the starting whistle showed minus 11 degrees Celsius, which is 4 degrees above the minimum allowed bar. In the second half, the defender of the railroad workers Stanislav Magkeev equalized the score, but the goal was canceled due to offside, which was recorded following the intervention of the video assistant referee (VAR) system.
Spartak and Lokomotiv met seven times in the Russian Cup, winning three each; one more time a draw was recorded. In 1996, the railway workers won the final of the tournament (3:2), and in 1998, the Spartak team (1:0). In 2006 and 2007, the paths of the teams crossed in two-match confrontations at the stages of the quarterfinals (the first match – 2:2, the second match – Spartak’s victory with a score of 2:1) and the semifinal (Lokomotiv’s victory with a score of 3:0 and 2: 1).
Goalkeeper Alexander Selikhov, as well as forwards Alexander Sobolev and Shamar Nicholson, who continue to serve a six-match suspension for participating in a mass brawl at the end of the game with Zenit, will not play for Spartak on Monday. Also, midfielders Nail Umyarov and Victor Mozes, who are recovering from injuries, will not play once morest Lokomotiv. The list of railwaymen’s losses is much shorter – defender Lukas Fasson and striker Wilson Isidore, who continue treatment following injuries, will not be able to enter the field once morest the red-whites.
About other quarter-finals and the Russian Cup format
Also on Monday, the Ural-Rostov match will take place in the RPL path playoffs. The meeting in Yekaterinburg will begin with a moment of silence in memory of the deceased pupil of the Urals Davyd Alekseev. The former goalkeeper of the Yekaterinburg youth team died on February 25 at the age of 19. In the first quarter-finals, the teams failed to determine the winner – Aleksey Kashtanov scored among the guests, Nikolai Komlichenko scored an accurate shot for the hosts.
The RPL Path Playoffs will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday. On February 28, Krasnodar will play at home with CSKA (the first match ended in a 3-0 victory for the army team). On March 1, Dynamo in Moscow will play with Krylya Sovetov (Samarans won at home with a score of 2:1).
The final game of the first stage of the ¼ finals of the “playoffs of the regions” will take place on February 27 before the “playoffs of the RPL path” matches – Zvezda in St. Petersburg will host Pari NN. Earlier at this stage of the tournament, Zenit St. Petersburg, Akron from Tolyatti and Grozny Akhmat advanced further along the tournament grid. They defeated Volga Ulyanovsk (3:0), Torpedo Moscow (2:0) and Ufa (2:0) respectively. At the second stage of the ¼ finals of the “playoffs of the path of the regions”, the winners of the first stage in mid-March will play with the teams that lost in the quarterfinals of the “playoffs of the RPL path”.
The Double Elimination system works as follows – at each stage of the upper bracket playoffs (“RPL path”), the losing team will go down to the corresponding stage of the lower bracket (“regions path”). Here, each stage will be played out in two stages: at the first stage of the quarter-finals, the four best teams of the “path of the regions” will play with the third teams of the group stage of the “path of the RPL”. At the second stage of the quarterfinals, the winners of the first stage of this stage will meet with the losing teams in the ¼ finals of the RPL playoffs. The same system will be applied in subsequent stages.
The winners of the RPL path and the regions path will play in the Russian Cup final. The decisive match of the tournament will take place in June in Moscow at the Luzhniki stadium. According to the calendar plan of the Russian Football Union for 2023, the tournament draw should end on June 12. The fan card introduced for access to competitions from June 1, 2022 will only be required to qualify for the Russian Cup final, it is not required until the decisive match.
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