Ugalde's Late Winner Lifts Spartak Past Fakel

Manfred Ugalde settled it in the 91st minute, and Spartak's narrow 1:0 win over Fakel in round nine of the RPL was built, by most measures, on his shoulders. The Gol Index rated him man of the match with 8.1, well clear of Roman Zobnin's 7.9 and Zhedson Fernandes's 7.8.

Fakel's goalkeeper, Daniil Frolkin, 25, still picked up a respectable 6.7 of his own despite conceding the only goal deep into stoppage time.

Fakel's sporting director, Ruslan Pimenov, gave a blunt account of how it went.

The defeat leaves Fakel bottom of the table on three points. Darko Todorović, 29, and Vyacheslav Yakimov, 28 — both signed for the Voronezh side within the last seven months and both with a single goal to their name this season — graded 7.3 and 6.3 respectively for their part in a rearguard that held out until the very end.

Former Spartak forward Valeriy Kechinov, reviewing the match, called it hard going.

"It was a tough game for Spartak. It was similar to the Orenburg match. The opponent defended throughout and did not create any dangerous moments at Spartak's goal. A packed defence is hard to break down. Credit to the red-and-whites, because they did not drop the tempo and kept playing attacking football. They scored, but the goals were disallowed. Football rewarded Spartak for continuing to play that way. The result is fair, Spartak were much stronger than Fakel. The goal was a matter of time. The red-and-whites won a very important game," Kechinov said.

He named Pablo Solari and Ugalde as Spartak's best performers on the day, and explained why head coach Carcedo left Ugalde on rather than turning to Daku late on.

"Manfred is in good form. He scores in almost every match and creates dangerous moments at the opponent's goal. Daku is still getting used to Spartak, going through a period of adaptation. Carcedo was right to leave Ugalde on the pitch," Kechinov said.

The win comes ten days after Spartak lost the Moscow derby 2:1 to Dinamo, a match in which Danil Prutsev, on the bench again against Fakel, had put them ahead early before Dinamo turned it round. Kechinov's own reading of the wider picture was cautious: plenty of results have gone against the favourites already this season, Krasnodar among them, and by his account the season's decisive stretch will come after the winter break, not now.