On 17 May Dynamo left Kaliningrad with a 2:1 win. Baltika played that match without Borisko, who was in the treatment room, and without the suspended Andrade. In the summer it turned out they wouldn't be coming back at all: Andrade left for Zenit for 3.5 million euros, Borisko signed for CSKA after the very first round. The question of the summer was simple: can this team live without the two pillars the whole house rested on?
On 1 August the answer came. 2:1, and the first win over Dynamo Moscow in official matches in 71 years: before it, 14 meetings in the RPL and the Cup had produced only four draws and ten defeats. There were no wins in Soviet times either.
First half: consenting to suffer
0:0 at the break and a firm sense that the hosts had chosen the pain voluntarily. 30% possession, three shots, zero corners, 0.10 xG. Dynamo racked up 313 passes at 78% accuracy, Baltika 131 at 56%. The hosts made 19 clearances and 10 fouls, lost the duels 45 to 55 and strayed offside four times.
But the key number of the half is a different one: zero big chances. Between the two teams. Schwarz owned the ball, Talalaev owned the space, and by the 45th minute neither of them had proved anything.
At half-time Rostec Arena had a separate item on the programme: the crowd was introduced to a new signing, Loris Mouyokolo, holding a shirt with the number 24. Text about him here. Talalaev called the defender a quality player at the press conference. On the evening the team beats Dynamo for the first time, without the departed Andrade, unveiling a new centre-back is almost theatre.
A routine, a penalty and a familiar name on the scoreboard
In the 57th minutea set piece clearly brought straight from the training ground came off: Gassama provided, Titkov finished. Titkov's entire attacking output for the match: 14 touches, one shot, one on target, one goal. The kind of efficiency forwards put on their CVs.
In the 62nd Talalaev took off Offor and brought on Gil. Thirteen minutes later the fresh striker stepped up to the spot and sent the keeper and the ball into different corners. 2:0. Schwarz would later admit honestly at the press conference that he didn't even see the penalty incident.
Dynamo replied two minutes later, and the reply was signed by Artur Gomes. The same man who opened the scoring in Kaliningrad on 17 May. Only then his goal was the prologue to an away win, and now it was left as a line in the match report.
The numbers of Talalaevball
Baltika played the second half with 26% possession and won it on xG, 1.24 to 0.39. How those fit together: tackles 10 to 1, interceptions 16 to 4. The team without the ball turned out to be more aggressive than the team with it.
Take away the set piece and the penalty and Baltika created almost nothing in open play, around 0.2 xG. But that was precisely the idea of the evening. The team consciously gave up possession in exchange for territory, opposition fouls and set pieces. The particular irony is that the best creator of the match was a centre-back: Gassama had an assist and 0.39 xA (which measures the probability that a player's pass turns into a goal, regardless of the finish). The models differ slightly on the xG figures, but both call the hosts' win deserved.
Last season it seemed that without Borisko and Andrade this model would stop working: too much rested on the last-ditch save and the individual class of one defender. The first home match of the new season showed something else. It turns out the main system wasn't a player but Talalaev's game itself.
Scene of the evening
Eighty-first minute, a shot, a deflection, and Tyukavin bundles the ball into the net. Rostec Arena falls silent mid-breath: in May it was his goal in the 71st minute that killed the game. A pause, a check, offside. The stadium exhales so loudly you could probably hear it on the Curonian Spit. In May the omens read against Baltika. In August even they switched to the hosts' side.
The evening said a separate thank-you to Latyshonok. Back in the Baltika goal, the keeper made three saves and, by xGOT (expected goals on target), conceded exactly what he should have. After the Borisko saga, drama was expected from this position, and instead we got a calm, assured changing of the guard. Whether Yevgeny would have played at all had Lyubakov not got injured, we'll never know 😎
Player ratings
The ratings, as usual, are the average of FotMob and Sofascore. These are two algorithms that watch the same football and see different things: FotMob loves defensive workload, Sofascore nitpicks every misplaced pass. When they argue, it isn't a measurement error. That's exactly the interesting part.
Gil: 7.9 (FotMob 7.9 / Sofascore 7.8). The only one both algorithms agreed on, and the fans in the vote with them. Half an hour of football, one walk to the spot, zero doubts. Some players need a whole match to make history. Gil needed the pause before his run-up.
Shnaptsev: 7.8 (8.2 / 7.4). FotMob's player of the match: 6 tackles, 4 interceptions, 9 of 12 ground duels and not a single loss of possession in 90 minutes. The whole right flank was his, check the heat map. But football is built unfairly: Gomes's goal came from his side, and, according to our information, Talalaev is so unhappy with that episode that it may come to a fine. Algorithms hand out prizes, the coach hands out bills. That's the accounting.
Gassama: 7.7 (7.9 / 7.4). The best creator of the match was a centre-back: an assist from a routine, 0.39 xA, a big chance created. I like to think that somewhere in that moment Dynamo's entire midfield felt a bit awkward. The only worry of the evening: in the 70th minute he left the pitch injured.
Titkov: 7.3 (7.2 / 7.4). 14 touches in 68 minutes, and I was already drafting his paragraph about invisibility. Then the pass from Gassama, Titkov finished, and the paragraph had to be rewritten. That's what happens with players who know how to wait.
Varatynov: 7.2 (7.2 / 7.1). 7 clearances, 10 defensive actions, zero losses of possession and, for good cheer, a shot on target. The kind of work nobody makes films about, but without which there are no happy endings. Officially named man of the match.
Mendel: 7.1 (7.3 / 6.8). 21 touches in 88 minutes. Some might think the captain barely took part in the game. He took part in the opponent's game: 8 defensive actions, 2 tackles, 3 interceptions. There is such a profession: getting in the way.
Murid: 7.0 (7.3 / 6.7). The cleanest game of the evening: 77% passing accuracy, both diagonals reached their man, zero losses of possession. A yellow card is included, but in this system it's more of an attendance mark.
Anderson: 6.9 (7.5 / 6.3). The algorithms' main dispute, a 1.2-point gap. FotMob counted 14 defensive actions, the most in the match, and was delighted. Sofascore counted 44% passing accuracy and winced. Both were looking at the same man. I'm siding with FotMob, I think: Anderson wasn't being paid for passes tonight.
Latyshonok: 6.9 (7.0 / 6.7). Three saves, conceded exactly what xGOT said he should. In the goalkeeping profession there is the genre of heroic drama, and there is the genre of the quiet changeover. After this summer Baltika needed the second one.
Beveev: 6.6 (7.1 / 6.0). The second big dispute between the platforms, and a substantive one. FotMob credited the volume: 46 touches, 8 passes into the final third, a successful dribble. Sofascore sent an invoice for that volume: 24 losses of possession, 33% accuracy in the opposition half, 2 of 10 long balls. It's important to understand: in football without the ball a full-back makes almost every pass under pressure — that's the price of the system, not a verdict on the player. Both machines are right. One just counts what was done, the other what was left undone.
M. Petrov: 6.6 (6.5 / 6.6). Not his evening: 0 of 2 on target, two offsides, four fouls. He ran, he tried, he battled, and the match report remembered only the fouls. That happens too.
Offor: 6.5 (6.5 / 6.4). 62 minutes of donkey work: 6 of 12 aerials, zero shots (!!). He was taken off for an idea. The idea, let me remind you, scored from the spot. Leaving the stage at the right time is an art too.
Civic: 6.5 (6.4 / 6.5). Came on to fill the injured Gassama's spot. Filled it. Nobody writes songs about appearances like that, but coaches remember them.
Moufi: 6.4 (6.4 / 6.4). Complete consensus between the platforms, an almost unique case in this match. Straight into the measurement-theory textbook. For now, it isn't working out for Moufi.
Pospelov: 6.4 (6.2 / 6.5). 22 minutes, game already won, formally all fine. The coaching staff had questions: Dynamo were opening up zones late on, and Pospelov wasn't running into them. Algorithms don't notice that sort of thing. Talalaev does.
Belikov: no average. Came on in the 88th; FotMob doesn't rate a spell that short, Sofascore gave 6.7. Per minute played, the most generous rating of the evening.
In place of a conclusion
After round one I wrote: Baltika know how to make an opponent uncomfortable, but don't convert good spells into points. It took a week for the formula to go out of date. Maybe this Baltika can't dominate yet. But it can already win precisely the matches in which most teams usually hide behind possession statistics.
So, do you now believe life without Borisko and Andrade is possible? Or are you waiting for an opponent who won't let Baltika play on the counter?
https://t.me/BalticaB my Telegram
