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Hello! This is Gia Saralidze in the studio of "Vestnik Kavkaza".
As always, we're talking about football,
the most interesting things that happened in this sport number one,
and of course, our current program is dedicated to the final of the Russian Cup,
which was held last weekend in Grozny.
At the Ahmad Arena "Anzhi" from Makhachkala met CSKA Moscow.
There's been a lot of talk around this match that was, frankly, not about football.
Part of the fans, most of the fans actually, of the army-team, refused to go to Grozny,
some expressed their protest against holding the match in the capital of the Chechen Republic.
For me, in general such behavior of fans is a mystery.
It is puzzling from several points of view.
On the one hand, it is not clear why the Cup of Russia
can not be held in a subject of the Russian Federation, in the capital of the Chechen Republic.
No one has separated Chechnya from Russia, it is Russian territory, so the Russian Cup final,
in my opinion, can be properly held in the North Caucasus, and possibly in other cities as well,
in the end, not everything should take place in Moscow.
On the other hand, however, even if CSKA fans did not want to go to the capital of the Chechen Republic,
to support their team is the duty of every true fan.
God bless them!
They decided not to go.
Frankly, I am already tired of talking about this tension
between fans from the North Caucasus and fans of the Moscow club.
There are things that, when you ignore the politics, have to be devoted only to football.
If you really like this game, you can manage to agree on the football pitch,
even the US and Iranian teams at some point played in the World Cup,
and there was no incident, just football.
This is how it should be.
Sometimes politics should be forgotten and, in my opinion,
especially when it comes to the favorite game of millions if not billions of people.
As for the game itself: in my opinion, the atmosphere was absolutely splendid.
A full stadium.
The fans of "Anzhi", the inhabitants of Grozny came to see this match,
there was a small group of people from Moscow who decided to support their team.
The football, in my view, was of a very high quality.
A good, real Cup game with intrigue.
During the first few minutes, CSKA scored, Musa used the mistake of Vladimir Gabulov,
the goalkeeper of "Anzhi", who, by the way, later defended his post superbly,
and during the penalties also showed himself, when he deflected one of the strikes.
The Makhachkala team played very well.
Eto'o just had bad luck in this game.
There were a few moments, it is what they call "one hundred percent opportunity",
but in fact only a goal is 100%.
But twice he had very good opportunities one-on-one out, but could not hit the net.
But "Anzhi" was able to score a goal of incredible beauty towards the end of the match,
they leveled the score 1:1, then there was extra time, and the army team played with ten men,
their defender was removed in the last minutes.
And they withstood.
And the penalty shootout was affected by the very high level of the CSKA goalkeeper,
the superb Akinfeev, who defended his goal the entire match.
There were a few dangerous moments, but he managed to reflect Eto'o's strikes twice,
and other things were very difficult as well.
And of course, in the penalty shootout he was just great.
CSKA demonstrated very good football, and deserved the victory.
They have won the Cup of Russia already for the seventh time.
In general, all the talk around the cup, whether the best teams of the Premier League
play with their full energy in this competition or not, you know,
it's been time to stop this for a long time already.
It is the second most important competition in the country.
The Cup of Russia. Take the English Championship, the English Premier League and the FA Cup.
English clubs also have an incredibly difficult schedule:
European Cups and other competitions, and many players of the top clubs go play for national teams,
yet still the FA Cup is an event, especially the final.
This event is important for the country, for the fans, for the clubs.
And the same should go for us.
The match that took place in Grozny clearly demonstrates that the Cup of Russia and the Russian Cup finals
can be full of emotions, played with great performance skills.
And the emotions get to the fans, the football players themselves, the coaches.
Go and tell the CSKA players who were so happy to win, to win the double this year,
they also have won the Championship of Russia, and now they have also won the Cup of Russia,
tell them it is a secondary competition.
Looking at how happy they were after winning the match after a penalty shootout,
I think that no one would dare to say that the army team won in an insignificant tournament.
It really is the national cup, it is always prestigious, it is always going to be very important
- to win the trophy.
Especially as the army team did – for the seventh time.
It is a record for the club.
And of course, the Makhachkala players are upset about the fact
that it was the second time they have lost in a final, the last time they lost to Lokomotiv Moscow.
But if the team continues to develop, if football in Dagestan is developed,
and from the financial point of view, the situation of the club does not get worse,
I think it's not the last final for "Anzhi", especially as "Anzhi" is now the bronze medalist,
the team has won medals, and this means a lot.
In my opinion, the last game was very good.
Anyone who missed this event and didn't watch it, I think they have missed a lot.
This is such a culminating point in the completion of our domestic football season:
the Championship is over, the Cup is over.
But another very important game is ahead of us – the national team will soon play against Portugal –
this is a very important game.
We will follow it, be sure to talk about this match,
about its results, and we will discuss everything that is happening around the national team.
But that will be in our next program.