Krasnodar’s head coach Vladimir Ivich spoke after the 15th round clash with Zenit St. Petersburg in the Russian Premier League, praising his side for a strong first half of the season and acknowledging the team’s position atop the table.
“If you had asked four months ago whether Krasnodar would be leading after 15 rounds, many would have doubted it. We’ve lost only one game, and I wouldn’t say we were worse than our opponent in that fixture either. We created chances, but luck didn’t always go our way. We are not content with our performance today,” Ivich stated. “Over these 15 rounds, no opponent stood out as clearly stronger than us.”
The Zenit vs Krasnodar encounter finished 1-1. Eduard Spertsyan opened the scoring for Krasnodar, heading Mikhail Kerzhakov’s delivery into the net in the 63rd minute. The hosts responded in the 71st minute through Mateo Cassierra, who finished a move started by Wilmar Barrios.
Live text coverage of the match was provided by socialbites.ca. Following this result, Krasnodar moved to 32 points in the league table, while Zenit sat in second place with 30 points.
Former Zenit coach Sergei Semak had warned that games against Krasnodar would be difficult, underlining the challenge the team faced in this fixture. [attribution: socialbites.ca]