Baltika used to be Spartak — that's part of the club's history, text here.

In Grozny Spartak held 73% of the ball and created 0.55 xG. And won 2:1.

That is the most important number ahead of 16 August — more important than any talk about who the favourite is. Akhmat did almost everything you do against a team that wants the ball: sat in a 5-4-1, gave up possession, limited the opponent to half an expected goal. And lost. Not because the plan was wrong, but because two stoppages near the opposition box were enough for Spartak.

I've gone through all three of Spartak's rounds and, separately, their goalkeeper. Below is what follows from it for Baltika, with numbers and with honest caveats where the numbers disagree with each other.

If you'd rather have it as a PDF — lots of pages here

Same possession, chance quality differs fivefold

FotMob data as of 10 August. The spread in possession is 13 percentage points. The spread in xG is fivefold. In other words, the amount of ball Spartak have tells you nothing at all about how dangerous the match will be.

Something else does — the share of attacks through the centre. Against Rodina it's 31%, against Akhmat 23%, against Krasnodar 24%. The last two numbers match almost to the decimal, and that's no longer a one-off. Against an organised opponent Spartak go wide: not because they want to, but because the central zone is shut to them.

Now the main part begins. Going wide is not yet a problem for the defending team. The problem appears when the wide position is followed by a cut-back or a pass back into the centre for a shot. The first you can put up with all match. The second decides the outcome.

Two men create. The rest can be left alone

Over three rounds the roles under Carcedo have settled in such a way that the match plan almost writes itself.

Marquinhos. The assist for Ugalde's goal in the 2nd minute against Krasnodar, the delivery for Wu's goal in Grozny. The chief creator, and he must not be allowed to turn and face goal.

Ezequiel Barco. Wants a lot of the ball, looks for a position between the lines. His free kick at 90+1 in Grozny brought three points. Against Krasnodar he was substituted at half-time — so his condition is an open question.

Nail Umyarov. Distribution and the first phase. High passing volume, almost no incision.

Gedson Fernandes. Against Krasnodar he played right-back. Movement and pressing, not creation.

And here comes the first non-obvious conclusion. Logic says press the holding zone — that's where Umyarov links the first phase to the attack. The data say the opposite: his passes create almost no threat. Spending your main pressing resource on him is pointless. Let Umyarov have as much of the ball as he likes. Let the sideways pass go, the switch, another sideways pass. What needs guarding isn't the ball but the pass's destination.

How Spartak won a match with 0.55 xG

Wu's goal in Grozny in the 39th minute is worth breaking down step by step, because it isn't a random episode but a routine.

Ndong snuffs out Martins's run one-on-one and clears the ball for a corner. Barco rolls it short to Marquinhos — Championat calls it "an original corner from Carcedo". Marquinhos delivers immediately, from a different angle and with a different trajectory than a regular corner. Wu muscles past the same Ndong and heads it in.

The point of the short corner isn't the short corner itself. It pulls one defender out of the box towards the ball, and the zonal defence fails to reorganise for the changed trajectory. The second goal in the same match — Barco's free kick at 90+1.

For Baltika this yields a specific task, not a general appeal to "be more attentive at set pieces": decide in advance who goes out to the ball at a short corner and who covers his zone. Without that, one routine is enough for Spartak to win a match they're losing on play. In Samara, by the way, Baltika committed 16 fouls against Krylia's 10 — there'll be plenty of set-piece opportunities near their own box.

The second risk is the offside line. Spartak are consistently caught offside a lot: 6 against Rodina, 2 each against Akhmat and Krasnodar. The team constantly attacks the space in behind. Against Baltika's aggressive line this is the central conflict of the match: the back five step up in unison — offside; one man hangs back half a metre — Marquinhos is already running at goal.

A goalkeeper who neither gifts goals nor saves games

Now the most interesting part. There are two stock opinions about Aleksandr Maksimenko online: "weak link" and "afraid of crosses". Both are inaccurate, and each needs unpicking differently.

His average rating last season was 6.73. That's the mean of two platforms, and they agreed almost perfectly: FotMob 6.72, Sofascore 6.74. The match matters, because their models differ: FotMob judges a keeper relative to xGOT, i.e. relative to the quality of the shots, while Sofascore counts specific actions. When the sample is big enough, two different logics give one number.

What 6.73 means on the pitch: in 30 matches, zero errors leading to a goal, and not a single match in which he won the result single-handedly. He doesn't gift goals and he doesn't save games.

Now the numbers that sharpen the portrait.

Minus 4.17 goals prevented (xG) on FotMob's model: 39 conceded against 36.92 xGOT faced. He saves slightly worse than the quality of shots at his goal would predict. That's a FotMob metric, Sofascore has its own model — I'm flagging that explicitly.

0.1 successful sweeper actions per match per Sofascore. Roughly three all season. FotMob shows the same picture in other words: 11 high claims and 4 actions as a sweeper-keeper in 30 games.

12 of the 39 conceded came from set pieces (5 from corners, 6 from free kicks), plus another 10 from penalties. Strip out the penalties and you're left with 29 goals from open play, almost half of them after a delivery into the box.

36 of the 39 goals he conceded came from inside the box and only 3 from outside it, with 21 saves from long-range shots. Sofascore explicitly names long-range saves as his strength.

And one more detail that strikes me as the most telling. Almost all dangerous high balls he doesn't catch but punches or palms away. After the parry the episode continues — and the attacking team gets a second wave.

So "afraid of crosses" is the wrong formulation. He comes out rarely but successfully: 100% successful claims on both platforms. The correct formulation is different — he almost never comes for the ball in his own box. Those are different things, and they mustn't be confused.

There's only one practical conclusion from this: shooting from 25 metres is a gift, that's exactly what Maksimenko is good at. The Krasnodar match is a statistical outlier (for now ‍😏)

The work has to be done inside the box, and specifically with deliveries. The aerial duel at a corner is left to Spartak's defenders one-on-one, and for that Baltika have Gassama, Anderson, Offor and Belikov.

An honest caveat about the new season: in three rounds Maksimenko is at plus 0.83 goals prevented — 3.83 xGOT against 3 conceded. Three matches against thirty — sample noise, not a change in level.

Where Baltika can score

Three routes, and all of them fit what the team already does.

The first — Nathan Gassama. Two assists in three rounds, he's among the RPL leaders for assists and the only defender on that list. It suggests itself: a centre-back who provides more productively than anyone else in the team — the ideal tool against an opponent with 63% possession, an early pass straight after winning the ball.

Except both his assists were headers and both came from set pieces. In Moscow, in the first minute, Offor's goal came from a throw-in and a Gassama flick-on. Against Dynamo, on the hour, Baltika worked a corner, Murid crossed to the far post, Gassama headed it down into the six-yard box for Titkov, whom the opponents had lost.

So Gassama isn't a playmaker from deep. He's the target of the delivery and the second-ball man in the opposition box — and for this particular match against Spartak that's far more valuable. Almost all of Baltika's goals this season have come after stoppages anyway: a throw-in against CSKA, a corner and a penalty against Dynamo, a throw-in against Krylia. The team already scores in precisely the way Maksimenko handles worst.

The second — the strike into the gap between full-back and centre-back. Carcedo's back four changed in every one of the three matches. Against a line that hasn't gelled, the interesting option isn't a cross to a static Offor but a diagonal run: ball out wide, Offor drags the centre-back away, a second player bursts into the gap.

The third — set pieces. And that's the route I'd pick if I had to pick one: it's what has fed Baltika all season. It rests on two proven things at once: Spartak's keeper doesn't come for the high ball, and Baltika know how to play the second wave. In the air Spartak are an inconsistent quantity: they lost the aerial battle to Akhmat and Krasnodar, but won it against Zenit in the Super Cup.

The thesis for 16 August

The question for the match isn't "how much of the ball will Baltika give up" but "how many times will Spartak be forced to start an attack from scratch". Offside, foul, second ball, clearance, pressure, offside again — turn continuous possession into a series of separate episodes. If Barco and Marquinhos never once turn to face goal in the central zone in ninety minutes, two or three well-timed turnovers will be enough for Baltika.

Last season Baltika took all 6 points off Spartak with a 4:0 aggregate. That isn't because Baltika are stronger. It's about the set of tools: a compact centre, physical battles, second balls and a quick break after winning possession. That's the combination that spoils Spartak's usual match, and it hasn't gone anywhere.

Five points to watch the match by, live:

Against a keeper like this, would you bet on set pieces or on fast breaks after winning the ball?

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