Kaluga made short work of Iskra Smolensk in the second round of the Cup's Regions Path, running out 5-0 winners at home on Wednesday. G. Bakharev opened the scoring after eleven minutes, and the visitors never really threatened to get back into the game.
And here's the thing about the first twenty minutes — Bakharev struck again from the spot after twenty-one, while N. Pervakov had added his name to the scoresheet in the fifteenth. By then the visitors were already talking themselves out of the tie, not because of the scoreline but because they were showing no sign of getting a shot on target.
I. Suchanov made it four in the seventieth minute and D. Klishchenko added the fifth with eight minutes remaining. The visitors managed five corners and had more than half the possession, but shots off target for both sides came to zero. Kaluga hit five on target; Iskra Smolensk hit none.
It was a performance that felt familiar to anyone who had watched them earlier in the season, when results had been patchy. They had lost 2-1 at Urozhay, drawn 1-1 with Torpedo Vladimir, and only scraped past Astrakhan 3-2. This was different, or at least it looked different until you noticed the visitors were still not creating anything meaningful.
The result leaves Kaluga with a comfortable cushion for the next round, though the real story is in the numbers — five shots on target and five goals means they were ruthless when it mattered, and Iskra Smolensk were left exposed for most of the ninety minutes.