Opening
A 2:2 draw looks like a strong result. But in substance this is a match after which Baltika have more reasons to be angry than happy. Kaliningrad led twice, through Mingiyan Beveev in the 43rd minute and Maksim Petrov in the 66th, but Krasnodar replied through Juan Boselli in the 59th and Jubal in the 92nd. By the official statistics the hosts had more of the ball and shot more often, but the result still ended level.
The main paradox of the game is that Krasnodar got the usual outward signs of control: the ball, territory, positional attacks. But for a long time they did not control the most important thing — the character of the match. Baltika forced the favourites to play tight, sticky football through constant contact, without proper access to the comfortable zones between the lines. While that worked, the hosts seemed to be pressing but not suffocating. That is the biggest compliment to Baltika: they did not merely defend, they imposed a foreign type of game on the opponent for a long time.
