Jan Holenda headed in his fifth goal of the season Sunday to give FC Rostov a 1-0 home win and sentence Dynamo Moscow to their seventh defeat in eight league games this season.
The win sees Rostov stretch their unbeaten run to four games and jump to 10th in the Russian Premier League, while Dan Petrescu’s Dynamo remain anchored to the bottom of the table.
The match saw debuts for Rostov’s new foreign signings, ex-England winger David Bentley and former Liverpool forward Florent Sinama-Pongolle, who both missed chances to extend their team’s lead.
The decisive goal came on 62 minutes, when Belarus winger Timofey Kalachev swung in a deep cross that found Czech striker Holenda in space at the far post.
Dynamo had come within a whisker of gifting Rostov the lead on 24 minutes when young full-back Nikita Chicherin, in only his sixth league game for the Moscow side, chested the ball down for Kalachev in his own box and was fortunate that the Rostov player slammed his shot into goalkeeper Roman Berezovsky.
German striker Kevin Kuranyi twice came close for Dynamo, once failing to reach a promising Balazs Dzsudzsak cross before a heavy first touch meant he lost the ball to defender Inal Getigezhev while in space in the Rostov box.
Late in the game, there were attempts on goal from Rostov’s debutants, Bentley skewing a wild long-range half-volley wide on 73 minutes, seconds before Sinama-Pongolle hammered the ball wide from inside the box.
As Dynamo searched for a late equalizer, Dynamo defender Vladimir Granat curled a free-kick just over Stipe Pletikosa’s Rostov goal before on-loan Austrian Jakob Jantscher wasted an opportunity in a good position on 86 minutes on his Dynamo debut.
Deep into stoppage time, Zvjezdan Misimovic tried to rescue a point for Dynamo in dramatic style with an overhead kick, but it was parried by Pletikosa.
