Spartak M – Rubin

The guests will compete for points on the capital's turf.

Moscow Spartak, as has long been customary in Russian football, is one of the most talked-about Premier League clubs this season. The Red-and-Whites completed a full summer training camp under the guidance of Juan Carracedo, which increases the pressure on the Spaniard to deliver results this season. The high ambitions announced by Spartak officials before the start of the season are also an important factor in the assessments of experts and fans. It is quite logical to expect one of Russia’s wealthiest and most popular clubs to challenge for the championship title. Last season’s national cup victory also fostered optimism among the Red-and-Whites. The start of the season can be assessed cautiously in light of their objectives. On the one hand, Spartak are in fifth place, just two points behind the league leaders. On the other hand, the Red-and-Whites are regularly dropping points—not only in matches against rivals such as Krasnodar, but also against teams like Orenburg and Krylia Sovetov. Carracedo’s team suffered a setback in Samara last Saturday. One of the key reasons was the early dismissal of Aleksandr Maksimenko, who will now miss the match against Rubin. One of the main intrigues ahead of the upcoming meeting with the Kazan side will be Mirlind Daku. After moving from Rubin to Spartak, the Albanian forward has already faced his former club, but that was in a relatively unimportant national cup match. Rubin did not replace their leader with anyone after selling him. This is probably one of the key explanations for Frank Artiга’s team’s low scoring rate. Rubin have scored more than one goal only twice this season, and even in the first of those matches, one of the goals against Akron was scored by Daku. The Kazan side have drawn 1–1 in eight of their last ten official matches. In the previous Premier League round, Rubin were once again close to that result, but they failed to recover from the goal conceded to Dynamo Moscow, losing 0–1. The visitors’ resilience in the upcoming match is rewarded with just one point, but they are certainly capable of causing trouble for the Red-and-Whites. We will bet that Rubin will come close to earning points in Moscow.