A half-empty arena on a Sunday night
Kick-off was at 20:00 Kaliningrad time. A late Sunday slot, moved another 15 minutes at the broadcaster's request. Monday morning was waiting, and children under 14 were only admitted with adults.
The result: 10,462 spectators in a stadium that holds more than 35,000. Less than a third full.
The late slot did not deter only families with children. Those who came did not have much fun either: Baltika's first shot arrived only after the opening quarter-hour.
Without Mendel and Murid
Baltika were missing two players who hold the midfield together. Mendel was suspended after accumulating yellow cards; Murid was left out because of injury.
Talalaev reshaped the side. Maksim Petrov and Varatynov started on the bench, while Gil and Golenkov began together up front for the first time in the league this season. The shape was 3-5-2, with Belikov and Ilya Petrov in central midfield.
It did not work. Without Mendel there was nobody to control possession in the middle; without Murid, nobody to sharpen the attack. The two forwards mostly received long balls and struggled in the air: Gil and Golenkov won only 9 of 31 aerial duels between them.
The coach was right: two different halves
After the match Talalaev made no attempt to defend the first half:
"The first half didn't work, I'll say that straight away, and I wasn't happy with what was happening on the pitch."
The second half, he said, was better. RuStat agrees.
First half. Baltika had only two shots and neither was on target: Shiltsov's blocked effort and Belikov's header in the 19th minute. Rostov moved the ball comfortably, completing 219 passes to Baltika's 136. Most importantly, the visitors won the ball 11 times in Baltika's half, while Baltika lost it 11 times close to their own goal. The pressing that defined Baltika last season simply was not there.
Second half. Losses in their own half fell from 11 to two. Rostov themselves won the ball in Baltika territory only twice. Baltika did it eight times, compared with four before the break. Completed passes into the box rose to 13 from nine. Rostov completed 55 fewer passes than in the first half: Baltika simply stopped letting them play out.
The closing stages. This is where Talalaev's talk of "our advantage" makes sense. In the 75th minute Offor headed against the post from a corner. In the 85th, after Offor's flick, Ilya Petrov forced Artyom Petrov into the save of the evening with a header. In stoppage time Beveev and Mouyokolo also had shots.
But in terms of chance quality, the match still belonged to Rostov. xG estimates the probability of scoring from all those shooting positions combined. According to RuStat, Baltika had 0.74 xG to Rostov's 1.88, two and a half times less. The most dangerous effort of the match was Ronaldo's 67th-minute shot from a corner, worth 0.59 xG. Varatynov blocked it.
Talalaev explained what was missing:
"We lack passion. Last year we were breaking the posts, but forcing the ball into the net. Now that passion has gone somewhere."
Starting XI
Mingiyan Beveev — 7.5 (RuStat Index 195)
Baltika's best player and second-best on the pitch behind Langovich. Almost every ball that reached the opposition box came down the right — through Beveev. He made 62 passes at 85% accuracy, 13 into the penalty area, ten of them completed. RuStat logged 98 technical-tactical actions, with 80% successful. Only one thing was missing: very little of that volume turned into shots. But Baltika's delivery came almost entirely from him.
Evgeny Latyshonok — 7.5 (RuStat Index 188)
Rostov had ten shots, two on target. Latyshonok saved both, both at full stretch. Olusegun aimed under the bar in the 10th minute; Kuchayev shot in the 35th. RuStat marked both as goalscoring chances. He was confident with the ball too: 17 accurate long passes from 21. One nervous first-half moment, when he parried straight to Sako, went unpunished.
Ilya Petrov — 7.0 (RuStat Index 164)
One of the few players constantly trying to invent something. Team-high xG of 0.25 and xA of 0.37. xA estimates how many goals a player's passes would be worth if teammates finished at an average rate. Fourteen passes into the box, ten completed. In the 85th minute he met the move himself with a header — Baltika's best chance of the match — but Rostov's goalkeeper saved. The downside of all that energy: five fouls, most on the pitch.
Nathan Gassama — 6.5 (RuStat Index 156)
Ten interceptions, most in the team. Three tackles, all successful. Seven actions in the opposition box is a lot for a centre-back: he joined set pieces and attacks. But going forward he won only 4 of 13 duels and lost possession five times in his own half, another team high. RuStat recorded a major error in the 56th minute; Suleymanov got a chance from it and headed wide.
Loris Mouyokolo — 6.5 (RuStat Index 152)
The middle of the back three, with plenty of aerial work. Twelve recoveries, most in the team. Won 12 of 17 duels and 7 of 11 aerials. No losses of possession in his own half. In the 10th-minute sequence that ended with Olusegun shooting on target, RuStat assigned the error to him and Anderson: one misplaced the pass, the other slipped. After that, steady and reliable — and he even had a shot in stoppage time.
Ivan Belikov — 6.5 (RuStat Index 148)
Came into the centre for Mendel and protected the zone: eight interceptions and 11 recoveries. He offered more in attack than expected: nine actions in the opposition box, most in the team, a header on target in the 19th minute and Baltika's second-highest xG at 0.21. He lost plenty in the air, winning 5 of 13 aerial duels. And one thing Mendel normally provides was missing: the first forward pass that gets the team out from the back.
Konstantin Shiltsov — 6.0 (RuStat Index 154)
His match began with a fall in the box in the fourth minute — no penalty, correctly. Baltika's first shot was his too, blocked. Nine interceptions and three fouls won. But he won only 3 of 15 attacking duels, and in the 35th minute his error allowed Kuchayev to shoot and forced Latyshonok into a save. Replaced in the 90th minute.
Eldar Civic — 6.0 (RuStat Index 144)
Excellent defensively: 14 duels won from 19, including 7 of 9 aerials, and four successful tackles from four. On the ball, much tougher: fewer than half of his 31 passes were accurate, and none of his five deliveries into the box reached a teammate. Baltika's left side defended but did not attack. Replaced in the 74th minute.
Eduardo Anderson — 5.5 (RuStat Index 143)
Right-sided centre-back in the three; replaced by Varatynov on the hour. Shared responsibility with Mouyokolo for the 10th-minute error and lost the ball four times in his own half. Only three of six long passes found a teammate. Those losses were a major reason Baltika could not play out in the first half.
Yegor Golenkov — 5.0 (RuStat Index 136)
His first RPL start of the season, against his former club. No shots in 60 minutes, offside in the eighth. Won 6 of 17 aerial duels — the key number for a forward being fed long balls all evening. One positive: 0.21 xA, second in the team behind Ilya Petrov. Still not enough. Talalaev put it simply: "Golenkov still hasn't got into shape."
Brian Gil — 4.5 (RuStat Index 136)
Joint-lowest RuStat Index among Baltika's starters, together with Golenkov. No shots in 74 minutes according to the event data. The 18th-minute moment that ended with Rostov's keeper collecting the ball was not a shot: Gil was heading it down for Golenkov, who could not get there. He won 6 of 22 duels, including 3 of 14 aerials. Before kick-off he received the supporters' Player of the Month award for September.
"Gil is still a long way from the Gil who came on last season, changed games and produced results," said Andrey Talalaev.
Substitutes
Chinonso Offor — 7.0 (RuStat Index 150)
Replaced Gil in the 74th minute, and Baltika's attack immediately changed. Almost at once he headed against the post from a corner. In the 85th minute his flick created Baltika's best chance for Ilya Petrov. In 23 minutes including stoppage time he accumulated 0.16 xG and created a goalscoring chance. Gil and Golenkov, in 135 minutes combined, recorded no xG at all. Talalaev: "Offor came into the game very well." The rating is higher than the index suggests because he did more in 23 minutes than the starting forwards managed in more than an hour.
Sergey Varatynov — 7.0 (RuStat Index 146)
Replaced Anderson in the 60th minute and saved Baltika from defeat. Ronaldo shot from a corner in the 67th minute; Varatynov blocked the most dangerous effort of the match, worth 0.59 xG. Won all three of his duels.
Mikhail Ryadno — 6.0 (RuStat Index 150)
Replaced Civic in the 74th minute. Twenty-three minutes, three duels won from four, 71% successful actions. Did nothing wrong and added more forward movement down the left than Civic had provided. The index is high, but unlike Offor he had no standout episode that changed the game.
Maksim Petrov — 5.0 (RuStat Index 146)
Replaced Golenkov on the hour. Thirty-six minutes, no shots, one duel won from nine. Talalaev did not soften it: "Max Petrov, unfortunately, has faded a little." Too little from a national-team player.
Stefan Kovač — no rating
Replaced Shiltsov in the 90th minute. One pass and one action in the opposition box; RuStat does not calculate an index for such a short appearance.
What does it all mean?
A draw with Rostov is not a disaster, but it was Baltika's fifth league match in a row without a win. Three conclusions stand out in the numbers.
First: without Mendel, Baltika lose control of the ball in central midfield. Belikov protected the zone but could not play the first forward pass. So the ball kept going long towards the two strikers, who won only 9 of 31 aerial duels.
Second: Baltika's best players were the right wing-back and the goalkeeper. The best chances were created not by the forwards but by Ilya Petrov and Offor, who came on for the final 20 minutes. The two starting strikers did not take a single shot.
Third: Talalaev's adjustment worked, but too late. In the second half Baltika stopped losing the ball around their own box and took the initiative. Had they played that way from the first minute, the result might have been different. Give them another ten minutes and I am convinced Baltika would have finished Rostov off.
I have my doubts
One final thing. Who is Sunday football at 20:00 on a cold, damp autumn evening actually for?
Everyone has work on Monday morning; children have school. The final whistle came at around ten at night, and people leaving Rostec Arena got home closer to eleven. 10,462 spectators was the city's answer. The wider region did not come to the football.
After the match Talalaev admitted that playing at that time was not especially comfortable for the teams either. But he added that perhaps everyone across the country was watching Baltika on television.
Maybe. Let's check what time the match started elsewhere in Russia:
- 21:00 — Moscow, St Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, Kazan;
- 22:00 — Samara, Saratov, Izhevsk;
- 23:00 — Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Perm, Ufa, Tyumen;
- midnight — Omsk;
- 01:00 — Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Barnaul, Kemerovo;
- 02:00 — Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude;
- 03:00 — Chita, Yakutsk, Blagoveshchensk;
- 04:00 — Vladivostok, Khabarovsk;
- 05:00 — Magadan.
And that is only kick-off. In Moscow the match ended at around eleven at night; in Yekaterinburg around one in the morning; in Novosibirsk around three; in Vladivostok close to six — just in time to start getting ready for work.
Did everyone really watch? As the famous Soviet comedy character Bunsha used to say: I have grave doubts. The broadcaster gets prime time, the league gets its schedule, and the stands get empty seats.
And next comes something even better. Baltika's next home match is on Thursday, in the cup against Zenit. Sunday at eight turned out to be inconvenient. Now we can test how convenient Thursday at 20:45 is — especially for everyone going back to work on Friday.
What time did you watch Baltika v Rostov — and did you make it to the final whistle?
