Kazakh striker Maksim Samorodov started for Grozny's Akhmat in their away match against Akron in the ninth round of the Russian Premier League. The game, played in Samara, ended in a 0:2 defeat for the visitors, while fellow Kazakh — midfielder Galymzhan Kenzhebek — spent the entire match on the bench, according to infohub.kz.
The hosts opened the scoring as early as the fifth minute: Gilson Benshimol, receiving a pass from Roberto Fernandes, struck from outside the penalty area into the top corner. A little earlier, Akhmat had managed to score themselves, but Egas Cacintura's goal was disallowed after a VAR review for handball.
The visitors' situation worsened in the 37th minute when Georgi Melkadze was shown a straight red card. After that, Akhmat played more than half the match with ten men.
Karlen Hovhannisyan set the final score in the 87th minute — 2:0. For Akron, this victory was their first of the current Russian Premier League season.
Samorodov played 86 minutes on the pitch. The Kazakh took several set pieces and tried to join Akhmat's attacks, but did not register any goal contributions. He was replaced late on by Erald Maksuti.
Kenzhebek was named in Akhmat's squad, but head coach Stanislav Cherchesov never brought the Kazakh midfielder on.
After nine rounds, Akhmat sit tenth in the table with 10 points. Akron have collected eight points and moved up to 13th place.