The Russian Premier League sees two big matches this weekend, with champions Zenit St. Petersburg travelling to CSKA Moscow on Saturday, while Dynamo and Spartak play the season’s first Moscow derby Sunday.
Zenit glided to a surprisingly easy 2-0 win over an out-of-sorts Dynamo side last week, while CSKA must recover from a 3-1 mauling in the Urals at the hands of Amkar Perm during which captain Sergei Ignashevich and creative spark Alan Dzagoev were both sent off.
“It’s hard to say who’ll come out on top,” Zenit midfielder Sergei Semak said Friday.
“CSKA have certain difficulties, and we do too,” he added, referring to Zenit’s injury problems, with midfielder Miguel Danny still recovering from a knee injury he picked up in February.
Sunday’s Moscow derby pits together two teams with very different starts to the season after Spartak won both their first two games under ex-Valencia coach Unai Emery, while Dynamo sit bottom of the league with no points and no goals.
Spartak remain without new signing Romulo, who is at the Olympics with Brazil, while general director Valery Karpin suggested Thursday that Kim Kallstrom and Juan Manuel Insaurralde would be left out of the squad to give them more time to adapt to life at the club since signing last week.
The weekend’s action kicks off Friday with newly-promoted Mordovia Saransk trying to get their first points on the board as they host FC Rostov.
As well as the CSKA-Zenit game, Saturday sees a Caucasus derby, with Terek Grozny visiting an Alania Vladikavkaz side still looking for their first points since returning to the top flight, before Lokomotiv head south to face FC Krasnodar.
On Sunday, Krylya Sovetov host Dan Petrescu’s FC Kuban, before Amkar travel to Guus Hiddink’s Anzhi and Dynamo face Spartak.
The last match of the round will take place Monday evening, with Rubin Kazan away at FC Volga.
