Remember your most memorable visit to the stadium? In this material for the Otkritie Bank Arena blog, we asked about this from the employees of https://www.sport-s.net, who support Spartak. If you also have a story to tell, leave your impressions of the memorable match in the form at the end of the material.
Gleb Chernyavsky, writes a lot about Spartak at https://www.sport-s.net
I roared in the stands in 2007, when Spartak beat Dynamo in the last round, but Zenit still became the champion. I was in the middle of the mess and the happiest in the world when Spartak fans ran out onto the Otkritie Arena pitch (now the Otkritie Arena Bank) and celebrated the 2017 championship.
I saw Trichkowski's goal from the podium in 2015 and did not understand what was happening and how this was even possible. I was at Luzhniki in 2011, when in the 1/8 finals of the Europa League, Spartak destroyed Ajax and it seemed that Karpin could not be stopped further.
These are all emotionally powerful moments, but for some reason I want to give a masochistic answer to the question about the most memorable match against me at the stadium. This is Liverpool - Spartak. Yes, those legendary 7-0.
You know, that day still does not get out of my head. It's not even just a day, but in general that autumn of 2017. I remember I was at the wedding of the insider Ivan Karpov when the draw for the groups took place. By the evening, the dates of the matches became known - Spartak's departure to Liverpool was set for December, it was easy to get visas and get ready.
Between toasts at Karpov's wedding he asked his wife: "Are we going?" She shook her head and reminded me of the weather in England in winter, but she heard two magic words: "Spartacus" and "Liverpool". For 8 and a half years that we are together, she still did not understand what the magic was about, but she simply resigned herself to its inevitable action: "Well, let's go, let's go, you can't be stopped already."
I actually lived this trip for several months and dreamed of seeing my two favorite teams at Anfield. The draw in Moscow only strengthened my fantasies that there could be a fight in the return game. On the day of the match, the city was superb: the center of Liverpool was flooded with Spartak fans. This red-and-white invasion and Russian speech everywhere for some reason suggested that there would be a thrill on the field.
I entered the stadium imagining how Spartak will win. I don't know what came over me, where this attitude came from, but that's how my consciousness moved down. Events further - one of the strongest not even disappointments, but worse - devastation. When you sit prostrate without emotion.
As I remember now: 4th, 15th, 18th. These are the minutes in which Liverpool scored their first three goals. Spartak's sector calmed down, I turned a blind eye to the field and just did not understand how it was, because my main team had to break all Salakhs, Manet and Coutinho.
That match changed me. I no longer build expectations in life, but it's great to live in the moment, live here and now, and not build illusions.
Then you get much more pleasure from success!
Maximilian Alfimov, writes about football and not only, lives in Kaliningrad
I haven't been to the Otkritie Arena so often - after all, the logistics, if you don't live in Central Russia, are complicated. But every trip to the stadium evokes extremely pleasant memories.
But the most memorable one is the Champions League. In 2017, Spartak (finally!) Took the championship, although at the beginning of the season no one could have thought of this. And this is a guaranteed Champions League group for the first time in 7 years. If I have been to ordinary matches, then the Champions League is a completely different league. And when “Spartak” got Liverpool, which I strongly sympathize with, my wife (then not a wife yet, really) said: we must take tickets - and if you don’t take them, I’ll buy you myself.
Like a classic heel, I listened to her, took plane tickets, knocked out a friend, booked a hostel, got tickets to the game through my friends on Twitter and drove off. By the 10th minute I lost my voice, but the impressions from the game itself were incredible - it seems that then I understood why the players are so thrilled with the Champions League anthem, because it is really special.
Ilya Kotlikov, captain in the football team https://www.sport-s.net
In general, I went to "Spartak" so many times that I have accumulated quite a lot of all sorts of tales. What is the story, how the riot police "saved" me from the crowd of fans of "Akhmat" (then still - "Terek") or how I smashed the screen of a newly bought iPhone, celebrating Fernando's goal to Liverpool. Or, as in the old Luzhniki Stadium, having no money for a ticket, I got a job as a seller of some paraphernalia, who was given access to the stands from about the 20th to the 70th minute of the match.
But if we talk about the most memorable trip to the stadium - just as about some kind of integral impression, then I will name my first trip to Spartak. It was an away match in Khimki. I had a university there, I just entered the first year and a ticket was presented to me at the dean's office. I put on a scarf and went to the stadium in full confidence that I would have to fight off the local ultras throughout the match - the match is away. Having passed to the podium, I realized that 95% of the stadium are rooting for Spartak and calmed down a bit.
The main impression from the stadium and from watching football live in general is how close everything is and how well everything is visible (this impression was later corrected by the old Luzhniki stadiums, where I tried to go to all home matches). In that game, Sergei Parshivlyuk scored his first and, if I am not mistaken, the only goal for Spartak - he did not seem to be the captain then. And for some reason I was also terribly impressed by Renat Sabitov - he played so confidently and flawlessly that my opinion about him changed a lot. And in general, if you look at the composition of "Spartak" at that game, then there are only legends: Quincy Owusu-Abeye, Bazhenov, Carioca, Eldar Nizamutdinov (Lord!).
But the main legend then came out with Khimki - a young and promising defender Boris Rotenberg played a full match and received a yellow card. After 9 years, he will finally become the champion of Russia.
Yaroslav Susov, writes about football
As a child, I loved football very much, but I could not decide who I liked more - Spartak or CSKA. So my parents bought tickets for the derby. Full "Luzhniki", the most powerful atmosphere: Fire, fire, chants. But the seven-year-old was not very interested in me. I took the flip phone from my mother and filmed the most interesting things on the field.
It seems that Mozart's penalty kicks, mustachioed coaches Gazzaev and Cherchesov, and the same goal by Yanchik got there. I remember I was very upset - Spartak clearly looked stronger. But that phone and my videos from the match have been gone for a long time. But the scarf from the match is still in the closet.
Alexander Golovin, writes about unknown football stories and takes powerful interviews
Otkritie Arena gave me a spectrum of emotions for which billions of people love football.
In May 2017, I was happy when, together with the crowd, I rushed to the center of the field after the championship match with Terek. All that game I watched right from the lawn from behind the gate, before that I marked the gold in the bar. Without a journalistic assignment, under degrees and right in the middle of a roaring stadium - what a feeling it could be sweeter!
A few months later, the melancholy happened - Chile and Australia were bored rolling the ball in the last match of Group A of the Confederations Cup. June was in the air, I tried to persuade myself to sit to the end for a long time, but succumbed to the persuasion of colleagues - we fled after the first half and did not miss anything. Then even the world tournament at the stadium of your favorite club was not of interest. "Madness" - would have thought a 10-year-old me, who was waiting for my arena so much that instead of the standard Windows landscapes, I put a model of the future stadium on my desktop. Then they were going to build it somewhere in the area of the Botanical Garden and call it "New Colosseum".
That is why it was so alarming to go to the opening match in 2014: hundreds of months of waiting, dreams of what it will be like, and a typical September day, as if nothing grandiose would happen: a university - an exhibition about Lenin in the Lenin Museum - an interview with Shmurnov Dudyu - stadium. True, I rode on it not as an ordinary spectator or journalist, but as a steward.
The idea arose in the editorial office of the weekly Football - to write a report on how the first Russian stadium managers prepare and work (all other matches were discussed either by the police or, as it were, by stewards without minimal training). For this, I even went through two stages of training - the most boring theory in the style of Chile - Cameroon and practice at a test event. After which, on the screen of the still unfinished stadium, the stewards watched how Russia was losing to Belgium at the 2014 World Cup.
The first real match against Crvena Zvezda again showed that real life is much more difficult than any study. The result was neither a draw on the scoreboard, nor euphoria from the holiday (the match had to be watched with back to the pitch) and not even a Bi-2 concert right on the podium, but wild fatigue, which knocked out the daytime alarm. It turned out that after the search of 300 men, the body ached more than after the toughest training.
Maybe such memories from the first match are for the better: the strongest emotions quickly fade away and are rarely repeated, and the pain after hard work is easy to repeat. Feeling it, every other time I remember that trip to football.
A month after it, about 900 rubles (500 per match, plus a bonus) flew to the Otkrytie card.
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Do you have a memorable story from the Spartak match? Describe your stadium experience and take part in the drawing of cool prizes from Otkritie: football shirts, balls, tickets for one of Spartak's matches at the Otkritie Bank Arena stadium, and a super prize - training with Artem Rebrov.
Photo: / Alexander Wilf, Alexander Wilf; personal archive of authors