Zenit lose ground on CSKA, Rubin get off the mark
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Iceland centre-back Ragnar Sigurdsson and Colombian midfielder Ricardo Laborde set last season's third-placed side FC Krasnodar on their way to a first ever win in Saint Petersburg as they move up to sixth place.
"This is the win that we really needed to boost our self-confidence," FC Krasnodar manager Oleg Kononov said. "Today we played well in defence and threatened back on the counter-attack and it worked perfectly. I'm pleased with both the result and my team's performance."
Andre Villas-Boas' Zenit remain second, three points behind CSKA, who beat Spartak 2-1 in the Moscow derby on Friday. Zenit dominated possession from the off but it was Sigurdsson, who silenced the home fans in the 26th minute with a close-range header from Laborde's free-kick.
Zenit, spurred on by a capacity 21,000 crowd at Stadion Petrovsky, poured forward in search of the equaliser but they were hit on the counter as Laborde made it 2-0 five minutes after the break, beating 'keeper Yury Lodygin from 30 yards.
"Today everything went the wrong way for us," Zenit head coach Villas-Boas said. "We experienced problems in the first half with our attacking football and we failed to control Krasnodar's counter-attacks.
"We came out with a strong spirit in the second half but conceded the second goal and couldn't get back into the game," added the former Porto, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur boss.
In the late Saturday kick-off, two-time former champions Rubin Kazan, who have struggled so far this campaign, chalked up their first win with a 1-0 success at Kuban Krasnodar.
Turkish veteran Karadeniz Gokdeniz was the hero as he scored Rubin's first goal of the campaign in the 33rd minute. Rubin are finally off the mark having lost their previous four matches.