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On Monday, the last two matches of the 21st round of the Russian Premier League were played - in Moscow, the team "Torpedo", fighting to stay in the highest division, defeated the practically winless "Luch-Energia" on the road, while in Kazan the match between the teams that withdrew from the UEFA Europa League last week, against "Rubin", was won by the league leader, "Lokomotiv".
"Torpedo", needing points to stay in the Premier League, started the match actively but failed to create anything dangerous near the "Luch" goal. In the 19th minute of the match, the Legionnaire from Romania J.Florescu entered the penalty area and passed the ball to the onrushing D.Golubov, who successfully scored a goal.
After conceding a goal, the "Luch" players started to play more actively but only managed to strike at the "Torpedo" goal once. Soon the activity faded and both teams decided to wait until halftime.
The second half started with attacks from the visitors and they quickly managed to equalize the score. After the visitors' player's shot hit the hand of "Torpedo" defender J.Jokic, the referee awarded a penalty, which was successfully converted by B.Adzhindzhal.
After the goal, "Luch" did not intend to withdraw and continued to press "Torpedo". The hosts made a couple of substitutions and managed to move the game away from their goal and successfully launched counterattacks.
In one of them, they earned a corner, and at the start of the second half, the former "anti-hero" J.Jokic headingly scored the winning goal.
"Torpedo" won 2-1 and thus continued to fight for survival with the main competitor "Dinamo" from Moscow.
In the last round of matches in Kazan, the local "Rubin" team met with Moscow's "Lokomotiv". After the failure in the UEFA Europa League, both teams wanted to redeem themselves and started the match actively.
The first to score were the "Rubin" players, when after a high pass from the flank, V.Bairamovas scored. This angered the "railwaymen" and they quickly took the initiative to equalize the score. In the 27th minute, D.Sychev scored, and then D. Loskov scored, giving "Lokomotiv" the lead.
After such a blow, "Rubin" quickly recovered and managed to create a couple of dangerous attacks towards the end of the first half, one of which could have ended in a goal.
In the second half, "Rubin" immediately began to attack the "Lokomotiv" goal, and after eight minutes from the start of the second half, it paid off - the same V.Bairamovas scored again.
Later, the third forces got involved in the game. In the penalty area, the ball hit a "Rubin" player's shoulder and the referee immediately awarded a penalty, which was successfully converted by D.Loskov.
As the match was coming to an end, the referee made another questionable decision, when in the penalty area of "Rubin" he awarded a penalty kick in favor of "Lokomotiv". This penalty was successfully converted by the captain of "Lokomotiv" D.Loskov.
The visitors from Moscow won 4-2 and after this victory, "Lokomotiv" rose to the first position in the tournament table.
21st round Monday match statistics
2 - 1
19’ [1 - 0] Dmitriy Golubov
54’ [2 - 0] Beslan Adzhindzhal (11 m)
84’ [2 - 1] Jorge Jokic
2 - 4
6’ [1 - 0] Vladimir Bairamov
27’ [1 - 1] Dmitriy Sychev
31’ [1 - 2] Dmitriy Loskov
53’ [2 - 2] Vladimir Bairamov
65’ [2 - 3] Dmitriy Loskov (11 m)
90’ [2 - 4] Dmitriy Loskov
Tournament table[table = 8][/table]
