Gil had a hand in both goals, Golenkov needed a single shot, and Murid did the kind of work that never makes the highlights. But a pretty comeback doesn't cancel the questions about the match.
Football has an unpleasant habit: sometimes it lets you celebrate first and sends the statistical report afterwards.
In the 51st minute Baltika were 0:2 down in Voronezh. In the 74th Golenkov brought the game back to life. In the 95th Gil equalised. After a sequence like that you're supposed to exhale, praise the character and say: "Well, at least we took a point."
And then you open RUSTAT. And the joy of the rescue starts sharing a room with irritation that a rescue was needed at all.
That said, turning the match into a story of "we tore them apart, just got unlucky" isn't right either. Baltika created significantly more threat, but didn't control every duel and every spell. And between an advantage and a win, it turns out, there's room for an entire rescue operation.
Below is a breakdown based on the RUSTAT team, individual and fitness reports. The ratings are my own: the statistics simply help to understand each player's contribution.
The advantage was there. And not only after the substitutions
The final numbers look like this:
In the volume and quality of threat created, the advantage is obvious. But that's the total for the whole match, not a snapshot of where things stood in the 51st minute.
The start was not so one-sided: in the first 15 minutes Fakel had 60% of the ball and took four shots to three. Then the balance shifted: 56% possession for Baltika in the second quarter-hour, 66% in the third.
Even so, the first half shouldn't be rewritten in hindsight. Before the break the Kaliningrad side took ten shots to five, and the sum of the xG chart's values over the first three segments comes to about 1.39 against 0.25. The advantage in chance creation appeared before Golenkov, Shnaptsev and Ilya Petrov came on.
So the line "we flopped the first half, then finally started playing" is too convenient. More precisely: Baltika created enough not to go into the break without a goal, but didn't convert a single opportunity. This is where the grievance began piling up, and Gil's goal only partly paid it off.
The ball wasn't there for the collection
Possession by itself promises nothing. You can pass the ball around carefully between defenders for a long time and then discover that the most dangerous moment of the half happened at your own goal.
But Baltika's territorial advantage had substance. 204 passes into the final third against 107. The ball was sent into the box 64 times, 36 of them accurately; the hosts managed 23 and 16. Positional attacks ending in shots: eight for the visitors, one for Fakel.
Pressing episodes also favoured Baltika: nine successful attempts out of 13 against four out of 12. In their own half Baltika lost the ball nine times, Fakel 23. Explaining the result through sluggishness and an inability to play out from under pressure doesn't work.
But this is where it's important to stop in time. 2.99 xG is not three goals the referee forgot to write down; it's an estimate of the shooting chances created. Nine big chances in the provider's markup don't mean nine runs at an empty net either: xG is calculated from the characteristics of the shot and the area of the pitch it was taken from.
The statistics give grounds to say Baltika could have expected more. But nobody is obliged to convert the advantage for them. Fakel, for one, didn't offer that service.
Where the pretty numbers stop being reassuring
For all the gap in attacking figures, Fakel weren't a team that spent the whole match watching.
Duels won are almost level: 122 for the hosts, 120 for the visitors. In the air the edge already belongs to Voronezh: 60:49. In the second half they won 71 duels to 62. This is an important antidote to the phrase "complete domination": you can have the ball more often and create more dangerous shots without having the upper hand in the fight, which means every next long ball can still change the picture.
The end of normal time is telling. From the 75th to the 90th minute Baltika won only 13 duels out of 38 and took one shot. That doesn't cancel the overall advantage, but it doesn't allow the closing minutes to be described as a relentless siege either.
The two goals conceded are a separate story. In RUSTAT's classification, one Fakel goal is filed under an attack from a corner, the other under a fast attack. The diagram of the second goal shows a short chain: a long pass from Frolkin, an action by Mouyokolo, the ball with Magomedov and the finish. The hosts didn't need a long positional attack.
The diagram doesn't explain every detail of the contact with the ball. But it shows the problem well: a large volume of your own attacking doesn't insure you against one short episode at your own goal.
Fakel scored twice from three shots on target and 0.51 xG. That's a high conversion relative to the threat created. It can't automatically be turned into a charge against Latyshonok: the initial danger of a shot and the difficulty of saving it are not the same thing. The goalkeeping report logs one save from three, but gives no grounds for assigning personal responsibility for either goal.
The staff didn't wait for 0:2. The rebuild started earlier
A detail that's easy to lose behind the emotional ending: the triple substitution came at half-time, at 0:1, not after the second goal conceded.
Shnaptsev, Ilya Petrov and Golenkov came on for Beveev, Pospelov and Maksim Petrov. In the 66th minute Ryadno and Belikov replaced Gassama and Mendel. RUSTAT lists the starting shape as 3-4-3 and the final one as 3-5-2 with Gil and Golenkov up front. In other words, the staff didn't wait for the number of attacks to turn into goals on its own; they changed the make-up of the attacking group and the distribution of roles.
There was no instant effect: the next goal was scored by Fakel. But then the two-striker pairing kicked in. The diagram of Golenkov's goal shows the sequence: a combination between Varatynov and Shnaptsev on the right, a forward pass from Varatynov to Gil, the ball with Golenkov and the shot. One attack brought together a defender's progression, a wide player's involvement and the forwards' interplay.
So reducing the benefit of the substitutions to "Golenkov came on and scored" only works in a short post. At the same time, the collective benefit of the rebuild doesn't mean every player who came on had a great game.
Baltika didn't tire. Baltika didn't convert the advantage
The RUSTAT fitness report adds a fourth layer of data, and removes the last excuse that could have justified 0:2 at the break: fatigue or a lack of effort.
Baltika ran 119,020 metres against Fakel's 113,701, almost 5.3 kilometres more. The volume didn't drop, it grew: 60,566 metres in the second half against 58,454 in the first. In high-speed running, 5.5-7 m/s, the visitors had 8,662 metres against 7,475; in sprints above 7 m/s, 2,015 against 1,683. In total, roughly 17% more high-intensity work than the hosts.
That fits the storyline of the match: after 0:2 the team didn't die physically, it kept pushing. In high-speed running it also improved in the second half: 4,703 metres against 3,960.
The list continues by name. Murid accelerated towards the end rather than fading. Varatynov added distance from one half to the next. Anderson grew in both total distance and speed work. Even Mouyokolo, whose defensive play raises questions, had an even load across the halves; the "he tired" theory isn't backed by the numbers.
So the explanation for the draw is definitely not along the lines of "Fakel outran and outmuscled us". The breakdown now has four independent layers of data pointing the same way:
- 2.99 against 0.51 in expected goals;
- 60% possession and 27 box entries against 12;
- the edge in pressing and ball recoveries;
- 119 against 114 kilometres and superiority in speed work.
The question of efficiency isn't removed by this; it's sharpened. We had more of the ball. Created more. Shot more. Ran more. Did more speed work. And still rescued 2:2 in stoppage time.
Baltika player ratings
First, about the nature of these ratings. The scale is my own and built on RUSTAT data: the team, individual and fitness reports for this match. It is not a weighted average of the FotMob and Sofascore ratings I usually use in match pieces, nor a conversion of the RUSTAT index into a ten-point system.
The difference is fundamental. Aggregator ratings are computed by closed models, while the RUSTAT index is a weighted sum of technical and tactical actions, where the volume of work affects the number more than the impact on the result. That's why Golenkov, with one shot and one goal, has an index of 175, while Latyshonok, after conceding twice, has 145: the index honestly counts actions, but doesn't answer the question of who decided the match.
My scale answers exactly that question: 6.0 is a solid match with no clear excess of pluses or minuses, 7.0 a noticeable positive contribution, 8.0 one of the defining players of the game. I take into account the role in the system, useful actions, mistakes, physical volume and influence on the result. Where the data isn't enough for a personal verdict, I say so directly.
Yevgeny Latyshonok - 5.5
One save from three shots on target is a result that's hard to put in the credit column. That said, Yevgeny was accurate with the ball: 30 of 32 passes found a teammate, including six of seven long ones.
The rating is restrained, but not accusatory. The opponent's low xG doesn't by itself prove a goalkeeping error. Saving those shots was next to impossible
Eduardo Anderson - 6.0
One of the main participants in the build-up: 65 passes, 56 accurate. And this wasn't safe sideways work: of 33 forward passes, 27 were accurate. Plus 13 interceptions and 18 ball recoveries.
But his defensive match wasn't flawless: 13 duels out of 24 and only five aerial duels out of 12. The physical data explains where such volume came from: 10,394 metres, 1,046 of them in high-speed runs and sprints, 47 high-speed runs and 15 sprints, with both indicators rising in the second half. For a centre-back that's serious speed work, worth keeping in mind alongside the caveat about his aerial play.
Loris Mouyokolo - 5.5
A heavy load without convincing superiority over his opponents. 13 duels out of 25, ten aerial duels out of 18, seven interceptions, ten recoveries. Tidy in passing: 31 accurate out of 37, all four long passes reaching their targets. Also three fouls. And the mistake on the goal was very ugly.
The personal battles are curious: against Koksharov he won nine of 15 episodes; against Axel Gnapi he lost all three recorded. A small sample, but a good example of how total volume doesn't equal reliability against every opponent.
Fatigue can't explain the problems either: 10,355 metres, 828 in high-speed runs and sprints, and an almost identical load across the halves, 5,168 and 5,186 metres. A working match, not a disastrous one, but no grounds for a high rating.
Sergei Varatynov - 7.0
Not the most prominent defender by number of duels, but useful in progression. Of 47 passes, 39 were accurate; of ten long ones, seven. Three losses in the opposition half and none in his own.
The main plus, easy to miss in the match report, is his part in the first goal: his pass in the development of the attack found Gil before the ball went on to Golenkov.
The fitness report adds an argument. 11,220 metres, the second-highest figure among Baltika's outfield players, 867 of them in high-speed runs and sprints. And it wasn't work that faded: 5,710 metres in the second half against 5,510 in the first. A defender who progresses the ball and physically adds towards the end deserves an above-average rating for more than just the pass in the first goal.
Nathan Gassama - 7.0
One of the most convincing players in individual actions. Four successful dribbles out of six, 15 duels won out of 23, including 11 of 19 in attack. In four defensive duels he didn't lose once, and both tackles were successful.
The battle with Gabaraev stands out especially: nine episodes won against three lost. Gassama didn't just take a big part in attacking down the left; he frequently came out on top in direct contact.
His own two shots missed the target, but on the balance of actions this was one of the main positive performances in the starting line-up. The 66th-minute substitution, incidentally, also reads in the physical data: 5,684 metres and 381 metres of intensive running in the first half, 2,319 and 136 in the second. The drop-off was recorded before it became visible in the episodes.
Ayman Murid - 7.5
If Gil was responsible for the happy ending, Murid did a lot to make sure the team still had enough attacks left for that ending to happen.
Seven successful tackles out of eight, 16 duels won out of 26, 13 recoveries, 11 of them in the opposition half. Actions like these rarely become the storyline of a highlights package, but they are exactly what keeps the pressure going.
Not everything worked in the creative phase: of seven forward passes into the box, two were accurate. You couldn't call it a perfect all-round match.
But the fitness report turns a good rating into a high one. 12,287 metres, more than any other player on the pitch, including the hosts. Of that, 1,356 in high-speed runs and sprints, 61 high-speed runs and 13 sprints. And crucially, he added in the second half: 6,355 metres against 5,932, with high-intensity distance rising from 612 to 744. Maximum physical volume precisely when the team needed it most.
Andrei Mendel - 6.0
A match in which useful work off the ball sits next to regret about his own finishing.
Nine interceptions, five in the opposition half. Eight duels won out of 15. Tidy in passing: 18 accurate out of 22.
But Andrei had 0.54 xG, second in the team behind Gil, two shots and not one on target. Judging him only through the invisible work would be too lenient: the chances to affect the score were there, the result in the finishing wasn't.
Mingiyan Beveev - 5.5
An uneven first half. Of 30 passes, 19 were accurate; of 13 duels, six won; eight losses. That's not enough to talk about stable work on the flank.
But Beveev can't be declared useless: five accurate passes into the box out of ten attempts and 0.48 xA. He provided potentially dangerous continuations; what was missing was consistency. This is a rating for unevenness, not for absence from the attack.
Vladislav Pospelov - 5.0
Two shots, both on target, and three fouls won are the positive part of the match. But the rest shows how hard the game was between those episodes: four accurate passes out of seven, five duels won out of 14, nine losses, 13 successful actions out of 27.
The rating stays the same, but the fitness report forces a clarification of the wording. In one half Pospelov ran 5,771 metres and added 701 metres in high-speed runs and sprints, 12% of his total distance, one of the most intensive spells in the team. The "he didn't put in the running" theory doesn't work here.
Pospelov worked a lot, but extracted little from that work. The problem wasn't volume but efficiency: too many losses and too few duels won for the effort expended.
Maksim Petrov - 6.0
Maksim shouldn't automatically be filed in the same category as Pospelov just because both went off at the break.
Three successful dribbles out of four, two big chances created, six recoveries, five of them in the opposition half. He found ways to get involved in the attack and beat his man. The flip side: two shots without hitting the target, 67% passing accuracy and seven losses, with 0.29 xG and 0.43 xA.
And his substitution can't be explained by "he didn't run" either: 5,818 metres in a half and 610 in high-speed runs and sprints. Not a half that worked in every respect, but not an empty one.
Brayan Gil - 8.0
Baltika's best player by influence on the result. A goal, an assist, 1.35 xG and the highest RUSTAT index in the team: 197. He was involved in both goal episodes and put the full stop on the rescue of the draw.
That said, there's a reason it's an eight and not a nine. Of three big chances Gil converted one. In duels he won nine of 20, in the air four of 12.
He wasn't the team's main runner: 9,368 metres and 880 at high speed are average figures by the standards of the starting line-up. But his contribution isn't measured in kilometres: 8.92 m/s was the best top speed in the team, and he switched it on where it mattered.
There's a difference between "played flawlessly" and "made the decisive contribution". In Voronezh Gil convincingly answered the second question.
Maksim Shnaptsev - 7.0
One of the most useful substitutions, even though Maksim's name isn't among the scorers or assisters.
He has 0.55 xA, the highest value among Baltika's players, and his index of 179 is second only to Gil. More accurate in passing than the character of the match would suggest: 17 successful out of 21, all three long passes reaching a teammate. On the other hand, he won only six duels out of 14.
The physical data shows his introduction also gave the team tempo: 6,074 metres in 51 minutes, 762 of them in high-speed runs and sprints, 13% of his distance. Recalculated by RUSTAT to 90 minutes, that's 10.7 km and 1,345 metres of intensive work, one of the best figures in the squad. Hence the extra movement on the right after the break.
Ilya Petrov - 6.5
Ilya's index is low by the team's standards, 145, but treating it as a ready-made match rating would be a mistake.
Ten accurate deliveries into the box out of 16 attempts. In the final-third entries section he has seven successful episodes, the most in Baltika. But volume alone isn't enough: three shots produced one on target, and in duels he won two episodes out of seven. A useful match in terms of organising attacks, without sharpness in the finish.
Yegor Golenkov - 7.5
One shot, one goal.
Against the backdrop of Baltika's overall match, that kind of economy looks almost provocative. While the team searched for a way to turn its advantage into a result, Golenkov used his only shooting opportunity.
But his involvement wasn't limited to that shot: 27 duels in the second half, 18 of them aerial. He won ten, with passing accuracy of 47%.
Physically Golenkov is the opposite of Shnaptsev: 5,127 metres in 51 minutes and 471 metres of intensive work, the most modest tempo among the substitutes. But that's a different forward profile: not mileage, but presence in the physical and aerial battle in the box.
The high rating is for a crucial goal and his part in changing the attacking play. Not for winning everything in the air.
Mikhail Ryadno - 5.5
The statistics don't record any noticeable boost to the attack: seven accurate passes out of ten, no shots or crosses. Of eight duels he won three, and lost all three defensive ones. There were pluses too: four interceptions, two losses and none in his own half.
And by share of high-intensity work among everyone who came on in the second half, Ryadno is the outright leader: 545 metres out of 3,934, that is 14% of his distance. A perfect illustration that running a lot and creating a lot are different things. The team came back after he appeared, but that fact alone isn't enough to raise the rating of every participant in the finale.
Ivan Belikov - 6.0
A calm introduction without a striking attacking episode, but with useful battling. Five duels out of nine, three aerial out of four, a successful tackle, six accurate passes out of seven.
His volume of work with the ball was small, so his appearance shouldn't be called the main secret of the comeback. But in his part of the game Ivan gave the team positive actions. For the closing spell, that's a solid contribution.
So what is it: dropped or rescued?
Both descriptions have a right to exist. They just refer to different parts of the story.
By the run of the score, Baltika rescued a point. By the volume of chances created, they have reason to regret the two they didn't take.
But what irritates most about this match isn't even the xG gap. It showed that quite a lot of the team's elements were working: progression, box entries, pressing, Murid's work on recoveries, Gassama's individual actions. After the break came the continuations from Shnaptsev and Ilya Petrov, and the Gil - Golenkov pairing produced the result. The team even outran the opponent by five kilometres.
And it still took a goal in the 95th minute.
So gratitude for character shouldn't turn into an indulgence for the whole match. But disappointment at the result is no reason to declare that nobody did anything.
Gil earned his eight. Golenkov earned praise for the goal. Murid earned a separate thank-you for work that's only visible in the reports. And the team as a whole earned not a scathing review, but a serious conversation about how to turn an advantage into a win before the rescue operation begins.
The point really was rescued.
It just didn't rescue us from the feeling that we could have taken three.
And for you, was this match about character or about a win thrown away?
