Spartak beat lowly Yenisei to stay in UCL hunt

MOSCOW: Spartak Moscow, who have struggled since the Russian Premier League resumed after the winter break, kept alive their hopes of qualifying for next season’s Champions League with a 2-0 win over Yenisei Krasnoyarsk on Sunday.

The win followed two consecutive league defeats and allowed the 10-time former champions to cut the gap on third-placed Krasnodar to three points with six games left. Spartak had to wait until first-half injury time to open the scoring when Brazilian Luiz Adriano found Nikolai Rasskazov who scored from close range.

Yenisei then played the last 30 minutes with 10 men when substitute striker Artur Sarkisov suffered a hip injury just a minute after coming on and with coach Dmitry Alenichev already having exhausted his allocation of three substitutions.

Midfielder Ayaz Guliev added the second goal in the 84th minute. Yekaterinburg boosted their chances of avoiding relegation with a 2-1 win over two-time former champions Rubin Kazan.

Midfielder Andrei Yegorychev beat Rubin ‘keeper Ivan Konovalov with a 30-yard screamer after just 12 seconds. Dmitry Poloz levelled three minutes later before Romanian striker Eric Bicfalvi came off the bench to score the winner with five minutes to go with a close-range header.