Zenit showed a high-quality attack and created more chances to score goals, but sometimes a chance can turn the tide of the match. And so it happened in the game against Rubin. A counterattack on 90 + 2 minutes led to a gorgeous goal by Denis Makarov, who, alone against Dejan Lovren and Douglas Santos, managed to break through Andrei Lunev. “Analytics in simple language” analyzes which of the Zenit players is to blame for the missed ball, which led to an offensive defeat in Kazan.
Dejan Lovren
Immediately after the match, all the criticism was dumped on the ex-defender of Liverpool. Someone even doubted, but can Lovren be called a top defender? In fact, there are indeed questions for him. He lost the first selection attempt, but then caught up with Makarov.
At this point, it would be possible to cover the opponent, but the defender quite easily fell for deceitful movements, although for Makarov, two retreats on the swing are a typical action at someone else's penalty area.
On the one hand, Lovren should have known about this if analysts threw him a video analysis of Makarov's actions. That is, it is either a mistake of analysts (we remember that Nikita Vasyukhin left Zenit the day before and left for Rubin), or Deyan himself. But to justify the footballer, we can say that on such a difficult field and at 90 + 2 minutes of the match, video analysis can simply fly out of the head even for such a strong defender as Lovren.
Douglas Santos
In fact, Lovren's partner made more mistakes in this episode. To begin with, Douglas let Makarov go behind him. A correctly taken position and a won top could have deprived Rubin of the moment altogether. But the ball went behind the back and Douglas had to catch up with Makarov.
As a result, the Brazilian turned out to be a safety player, waiting for the end of the confrontation between Lovren and Makarov. When the Croat lost the first tackle before the free kick, Douglas should have been more active in taking the ball away from his opponent - this is the moment in the screenshot.
Instead, Santos staggered backward, losing momentum for selection. But the likelihood that Makarov could beat two at once is very small. Otherwise, we would already be evaluating the Rubin footballer as a player of the Russian national team. As a result, Douglas did not get close to Makarov to the distance necessary for selection and did not actually take an active part in the defense.
Andrey Lunev
Some even managed to blame the goalkeeper for an error when they conceded a goal. Although he can hardly be blamed here. Apart from the fact that blows from under the bar are rarely pulled out, Lunev took the correct position in relation to the ball and the batter. Although Douglas blocked a part of the gate, the Brazilian moved quickly, and these actions could not be predicted.
If Makarov had hit not in the far, but in the near corner, and the ball would have passed under the defender, then Lunev would have missed a really goalkeeper goal. And although Andrei generally acted rather nervously and poorly supported the team with his passes (let's write it off to a bad field), in the episode with a missed goal, Lunev is not guilty.
Alexey Sutormin
The moment at the gate should always be considered not only in its final stage, but also at the very beginning. When does the opponent's attack start? Immediately after the transfer of ownership from one team to another. In our case, after the unsuccessful cross of Alexei Sutormin. The Zenit midfielder had a good position to serve, but he gave the ball to where there were no partners. Rubin's forward Djordje Despotovich, who opened the scoring in the game, had time, but in just two seconds he handled the ball, raised his head and cut the pass to Makarov.
Sutormin, who could have better control of the ball in attack, can also be slightly blamed for the conceded goal.
P. S. You can also transfer some of the blame to Vilmara Barrios … The Zenit defensive midfielder was supposed to control the rebound zone after Sutormin's cross into the penalty area. There is no point in standing between defenders and forwards, since Rubin has only one Makarov in attack. But it makes sense to pick up the ball after Sutormin's unsuccessful pass - then Zenit's attack would have continued, and Rubin's attack would not even have begun.
