0:4 against "Zenit"

Today in Dubai, during the training camp, "Riga Football Club" played the first friendly game and lost 0:4 to the champion of the Russian Premier League "Zenit" from St. Petersburg. On February 27, we will play against another Russian team "Krasnodar".

Against St. Petersburg's "Zenit" 20 players got chance to play and each half we played with completely different line-up. The only who played 90 minutes were Brazilian midfielder Wesley Nata. The game was played in a similar style by the St. Petersburg team.

In the first half, "Zenit" played more with the ball, but the Riga footballers responded with good counter-attacks. In the 15th minute, ball hit a crossbar after Wendel's shot. In the 18th minute, "Riga" made great attack. On the left side Vladimirs Kamešs got the ball, then Felipe Brisola passed it to Stefan Milosevic, and the striker with great pass found Mikael Soisalo. Finnish midfielder got good shot position, but could not hit the net. In the 31st minute, Felipe Brisola from the box made good shot, but goalkeeper played great and ball hit the goal post. 

We played poorly in the second part of the first half. In the 35th minute, Sebastian Driussi scored goal after our mistake in the defence. Two minutes later Wendel made a shot from about 22 meters, and this time Nils Puriņš played unsuccessfully - 0:2.  In the last ten minutes of the first half, the "Riga" starting lineup got close to the opponents' goal several times, but could not score.

Ten new footballers went on the field in the second half, and the only one who stayed was Wesley Nata. Players on the trial showed great desire to prove themselves. There were no dangerous shots on the goal. At the same time, Ilya Isaev also had no serious work to do. Zenit scored two goals at the end of the game. Andrey Mostovoy hit the ball in the corner of the goal from the 11-meter mark, but already during the additional time, Stanislav Krapukhin hit the ball in the far corner from a good position - 0:4.

The next game of "Riga" will be played on January 27 against "Krasnodar".