The 26th round of the Russian Premier League championship was quite stormy. But it is unlikely that he will become a record in the number of emotions in the fields. At the very finish of the season, this still does not happen.
It so often happens that the long-standing relationships of rivals leave their mark on every new meeting. Something similar, obviously, happened in the match, “Spartacus” and “Tom”. The history of their meetings is not too long, but the game of the first round in Tomsk was well remembered by everyone. Then the representatives of both clubs expressed many mutual claims, and the refereeing was extremely dissatisfied. I have not seen the current match in Luzhniki - I myself judged the meeting between Torpedo and Moscow on that day, but I can assume that the Spartak team especially wanted to win after a draw in Tomsk. But the guests didn’t come to lose, and the matter didn’t end with football arguments alone - it eventually came to skirmishes and skirmishes.
However, in the central match of the CSKA - Zenit tour, rudeness directly on the field turned out to be even greater. I carefully watched this meeting and can say that I expected something like that. It was clear that it would be very difficult for refereeing, and I very much sympathize with my colleague Vladimir Pettay and his assistants.
Yes, the price of points in such matches is very high, but this does not justify the behavior of some players. They place personal ambitions above the norms of behavior in relation to the arbitrators performing their work. This can be partially explained by the lack of education or the peculiarities of the domestic mentality. But I am surprised to find that many foreigners are quickly reincarnating in our clubs. Even Koreans, famous for their discipline. After all, it was the Asian Zenit legionnaires in the match against CSKA that attacked the referees almost more than other players, and they actively participated in skirmishes with rivals. The Dutchman Rixen was also good, and the Brazilian army behaved almost the same way. Against this background, just the Russian players looked more balanced.
How to evaluate the actions of the refereeing team in this match? I believe that, at least, the chief referee has shown himself well done. He made some very difficult decisions and kept the game on the field. The penalty for the Zenit goal was obvious to me. It's not even that the ball fell into the hand of Korean Kim Dong-jin - before this episode, he hooked Wagner, who first appeared on the ball. This was not the most noticeable violation, but an experienced referee will always record it. By the way, the player of “Zenith” at first was not going to protest, but then succumbed to the general mood.
Could the head referee prevent outbreaks of rudeness on the field? Believe me, tough decisions alone are clearly not enough. This is usually possible if the arbiter has like-minded players. Pettai didn’t have them - he simply had no one to rely on.
Although there are reverse examples. So, in the last round I first judged on my birthday. The meeting of “Torpedo” and “Moscow” was also difficult, because the hosts were on the verge of relegation from the Premier League. And I was even more pleased when the players of both teams behaved with respect to the referees underlined correctly. And after the match, representatives of the clubs came up to me with congratulations, presented souvenirs and thanked me for the work.