The Match Has Been Protested
Two days after the disputed semifinal, the Tbilisi komsomol paper Akhalgazrda Komunisti ("Young Communist") ran its own account in Georgian. Where the Moscow press blamed the Tbilisi defenders for their own undoing, the Tbilisi correspondent saw something else entirely: a Leningrad referee who, for no comprehensible reason, had counted a ball that never crossed the line. The match, the dispatch concluded, had been protested.
Original Source: მატჩი გასაკვირებელია/ Matchi Gasakvirebelia, ახალგაზრდა კომუნისტი/ Akhalgazrda Komunisti (Tbilisi), September 10, 1939.
"The Match Has Been Protested"
(Moscow, from our special correspondent.)
On 8 September, at Moscow's "Dinamo" stadium, in the presence of 90,000 spectators, the semifinal football match of this year's All-Union Cup tournament was held. Playing were two of the strongest teams in our country: the USSR champion — Moscow "Spartak" — and Tbilisi "Dinamo."
Moscow "Spartak" played in its main lineup. In the Dinamo lineup were: Dorokhov, Shavgulidze, Gagua, Dzhorbenadze, Frolov, Chelidze, Dzhedzhelava, Berdznishvili, Paichadze, Berezhnoi, and Kharbedia.
In the first half, the Tbilisi Dinamo men carried fierce assaults toward the Muscovites' goal and were posing visible threats to the Spartak goal, but [the play grew nervous and] they were not given the opportunity to put the ball in the net.
In the 18th minute of the second half of the encounter, a critical moment was created in front of the Dinamo goal. Spartak's Protasov strikes from close range. Shavgulidze clears the ball from the goal. [Referee] Gorelkin, however, for a wholly incomprehensible reason, treated the ball as having gone in. In the remaining minutes of play the situation in respect of the score did not change.
The encounter ended in Spartak's favor with a score of 1–0.
Tbilisi "Dinamo" has protested the match.