Novopolotsk's Naftan has moved up to second place in the Belarusian Football Championship

August 24, Minsk /Sergey Vishnevsky - BELTA/. Matches of the 16th round of the Belarusian football championship in the top league took place on August 22-23. Novopolotsk's Naftan, having secured their second consecutive victory, moved up to second place in the standings, a BELTA correspondent reports. "Torpedo" (Zhodino) - "Naftan" (Novopolotsk) - 0:1 (Degterev, 65). "Dnepr" (Mogilev) - "Vitebsk" - 3:2 (Sazankov, 47, Matveenko, 66, Lyasyuk, 76 - Shakov, 47+, Kholodkov, 73). At the 89th minute of this match, Vitebsk's goalkeeper Yuri Vasyutin was sent off. Since the visitors had already exhausted their substitution limit, the Nigerian midfielder of Vitebsk, Simon Ogar, replaced the goalkeeper who had left for the locker room early for the remaining time until the final whistle. "Gomel" - "Granit" (Mikashevichi) - 1:1 (Maicon, 21 - Chalei, 74). "Minsk" - "Neman" (Grodno) - 0:0. MTZ-RIPО (Minsk) - "Shakhter" (Soligorsk) - 1:2 (Kvaratskhelia, 35 - Leonchik, 7, 49). The bronze medalist of the national championship, Minsk's MTZ-RIPО, suffered their sixth defeat in the last seven matches and is sinking deeper into the bottom of the table. At the beginning of the second half, the top scorer of the Minsk team, Givi Kvaratskhelia, was sent off. Having already received a yellow card, he struck an opponent with his hand during a scuffle with Soligorsk defender Roman Kirenkin. "Dinamo" (Brest) - "Dinamo" (Minsk) - 0:1 (Rekish, 85). The debut of Sergey Gurenko as the head coach of Dinamo Minsk proved successful. He became the 20th manager of the club since 2000. At the end of the match, the victory for the Minsk team was secured by a goal from Dmitry Rekish, who had come on as a substitute shortly before. The match between BATE (Borisov) and Smorgon has been postponed to a later date. Standings after 16 rounds: BATE (Borisov) - 37 points (goal difference 33-8), Naftan (Novopolotsk) - 28 (18-23), Dinamo (Minsk) - 27 (20-11), Dnepr (Mogilev) - 26 (18-15), Neman (Grodno) - 26 (15-19), Torpedo (Zhodino) - 25 (17-13), Shakhter (Soligorsk) - 25 (20-17), Dinamo (Brest) - 21 (15-14), Minsk - 20 (21-15), Gomel - 19 (19-25), Granit (Mikashevichi) - 17 (19-24), Vitebsk - 16 (13-22), MTZ-RIPО (Minsk) - 15 (19-26), Smorgon - 7 (9-24). BATE and Smorgon have played 15 matches each, while the other teams have played 16. In the race for the top scorer in the Belarusian championship, the leaders are Sergey Krivets (BATE) - 11 goals, Maksim Skavysh (BATE) - 10, Givi Kvaratskhelia (MTZ-RIPО) - 9, Kalijuri Maicon (Gomel) - 8, Sergey Koshel (Minsk), Andrey Sheryakov (Torpedo) - 7 each. The matches of the 17th round will take place on August 30 and 31. -0-