Navbahor beat Dinamo Samarqand 3-2 in the Uzbek Super League on Wednesday evening. The hosts took a point closer to the top of the table after a match decided by three or four moments rather than the ninety minutes around them. It was a result we called for in our pre-match analysis, though the confidence level sat at fifty percent. Regular Season - 22 came to an end with the home side seeing it out.
A. Amonov opened the scoring in the seventh minute to give the hosts a foothold. Dinamo responded with organisation, but it took until the twenty-first minute for S. Abdurakhmonov to level matters. G. Jgerenaia picked up a yellow card in the eighteenth minute, and N. Tukhtasinov followed in the nineteenth. The early exchanges suggested a tight contest.
And here's the thing about the twenty-minute mark — you can see where the game was going. J. Jumaboev put Navbahor ahead in the twenty-sixth minute, then collected a booking of his own a minute later. We had backed the home side to win, and by then the pattern was clear. Dinamo needed something to change.
G. Jgerenaia pulled one back in the thirty-ninth minute to bring the visitors within a goal. S. Abdurakhmonov restored the two-goal cushion in the forty-first, and it felt like the hosts were in control. U. Yusupov and A. Radayev went into the book at forty-third and forty-fifth-plus-six. The game opened up after the break.
Double substitutions came at the forty-sixth minute with B. Oblakulov and R. Djeparov on for Dinamo. Navbahor brought on A. Khudoyberdiev and A. Amonov in the sixtieth, while R. Jiyanov and B. Teidi entered for the hosts at sixty-nine. V. Ilic and M. Stanojevic joined the fight in the seventieth and seventy-eighth, and U. Adkhamzoda made a late appearance at ninety-plus-three. M. Khamraliev took a yellow in the eighty-eighth.
Navbahor had fifty-three percent possession to Dinamo's forty-seven, but the numbers tell only part of the story. The hosts registered five shots on target against three for the visitors, though Dinamo managed eighty-three attacks to seventy. Shots off target came six to two in favour of Navbahor, while corners favoured the visitors three to one. Free kicks stood at twelve for the hosts and sixteen for the visitors.
The result moves Navbahor closer to the top four, sitting third with forty-one points from twenty-one games. Dinamo Samarqand remain ninth on thirty points, seven adrift of the playoff places. The home side went through four wins and a draw in their last five, while the visitors managed just one victory in that span. The gap between them is now eleven points, and the result means the league table goes out of the window in these games.