Dinamo Beat Spartak 2-1 in Moscow Derby

Dinamo Moscow beat Spartak 2-1 in Sunday's Moscow derby, a seventh-round result that lifted Dinamo into third place in the Russian Premier League table, level on points with their rivals.

Spartak went ahead first. Manfred Ugalde laid the ball into the path of Marquinhos, whose cross picked out Danil Prutsev in the box. The 26-year-old midfielder, who joined Spartak in July, scored his first goal for the club. Dinamo hit back with two goals of their own and held on for the win despite being reduced to ten men late in the match.

Spartak head coach Juan Carlos Carcedo set out where the game turned.

"We started the game well. We were good for the first 25 minutes, went ahead, but unfortunately, not for the first time, we couldn't hold that lead. We conceded one goal, then a second, and naturally that was a shock for us. That was decisive in this game," Carcedo said.

Asked about the mistake by Nail Umyarov that preceded Dinamo's first goal, Carcedo was matter-of-fact. "That's football, it happens. Of course he wanted to keep the ball, but that happens. Dinamo took advantage of the mistake and eventually scored." He rejected the suggestion that Spartak lacked aggression while playing with a man advantage late on, saying the team had shown the desire to turn the match around and that the statistics backed that up, but that holding the ball for longer had been the missing piece.

Prutsev took a different view of the afternoon. Asked whether Dinamo had surprised Spartak, he said: "I wouldn't say so. It was an even game. They didn't really have many chances. They just had more luck." He added that Carcedo's instructions during the match had been "to move the ball more from flank to flank, and not break into counterattacks so often, to keep possession."

Spartak sit fourth on 13 points and are next in action on 13 September at home to Rostov. Carcedo had praised his squad two days earlier after a 3-1 Fonbet Cup win over Rodina; this result reverses that mood heading into the Rostov fixture.