February, 2013.
In February we’ve got 4 friendly matches and 1 Champions League fixture. First of all I would like to tell you on my Champions League match. I wonder if you could guess what opponents we’ve got out of all possible rivals. I was anxiously watching the knockout round fixture draw only to see that we definitely had no chances to go through to the next round as our would-be opponentes were…
Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid!!!!! So we had to do our best and hope they would have a reallly really nigthmare performance…which was very unlikely to happen. The first leg was a home match and it was a nightmare indeed, but for The Red-Whites only. Our Centre Backs were abissmal around the box: Marek Suchy rated 5,5 and Jose Manuel Inssauralde 5,7 as well; Andriy Dykan was a bit better (5,8), I’ve changed Marek for Nicolas Pareja and he performed much better, though I guess I was late with that substitution, moreover our midfield’s performance was poor both in offence and in defence, my hopes were in Jose Manuel Jurado as I knew he had already played against Real Madrid, but unfortunately his performance was even lower – just 5,6 and our opponents more than achieved their goals.
As for the series of the friendlies we’ve got DWWW, 5 goals scored 0 conceded and below you can see the results of all those fixtures.
March, 2013.
In March 2013 we’ve played 4 matches and our form was DLWD, 3 goals scored, 4 conceded and at the end of the month the League Table looked as follows:
Our first match was a home game against Rostov FC. Aiden McGeady gave us a lead at 47th minute and had a very good game being recognized as the match best player with a rate of 8,8 but unfortunately our opponents managed to equalize at 61 minute.
The second was an away match against Real Madrid in Champions League. My team played better than in the 1st Round but the opponent’s class showed itself in 2 goals scored by Karim Benzema (3rd minute) and Xabi Alonso (25th minute) and so our Champions League for the season was over:
The next one was our home match against Amkar. We were simply the better team and our young AM Pavel Yakovlev scored the decisive goal at 82 minute of the match.
And finally there goes a match against our local rivals CSKA Moscow. It was a stubborn struggle and all th events occured in the first half of the match, Artem Dzyuba gave us a lead at 38th minute and Seydou Doumbia equalised just before the break.
Here you can see all the matches played by The Red-Whites in March 2013:
April, 2013.
We’ve played 4 fixtures in April 2013, and our form was LWWW, 3 goals scored, 4 conceded.
As a result of those the League Table at the end of the month looked as foollows:
As you all can see the very first match we had played was away match against Zenit and it was a major upset as not a stone was left of our defense. Alexandr Kerzhakov scored a hat-trick and Alex Witsel accompanied with a goal scored at 71 st minute.
The other three fixtures were rather similar to each other won just by 1 goal difference. The win against Lokomotiv Moscow was rather pleasant but still I felt I couldn’t consider it sufficient rehabilitation for the defeat against Zenit.
May, 2013.
In May 2013 we’ve had played 3 fixtures and our form was DDW, 5 goals scored scored, 2 conceded.
The first one goes a home match against Anji FC, a very stubborn struggle which ended in a goalless draw.
The second one was a draw against our bitter local rivals Dinamo Moscow, where Jacob Jantscher gave our opponents a lead at 83 minute but The Red-Whites had showed they’ve some iron balls and Diniyar Bilyaletdinov equalised from the penalty spot.
And finally there goes the last fixture of the season against Mordovia FC.
So the final question is whether we had reached our season objectives for the Russian Football Premier-League? As you can remember our season objectives were:
- To qualify for the Euro Cup Competitions.
- To reach the Final of the Russian Cup.
- To qualify for the Group Stage of the Champions League
And as you can see the final League Table standings for the season 2012-2013 looked as follows:
So as far as I can see the results of the season 2012-2013 were :
- Objective 1 – Reached;
- Objective 2 – Failed;
- Objective 3 – Reached.
The result of the fan’s poll for The Red-Whites Best 11 you can see below, with Aiden McGeady as the best player of the year.
Thank you for following The Red-Whites chronicles and looking forward for your future comments.
Sincerely yours,
The Responsible One.
