football test

Introducing Russian Premier League (RPL)
Section: Football in Russian
Editor: Victor polansky

The topic of my section on this blog is football in Russia. Quite naturally, it will be focused mostly on the Russian Premier League and on the national team; but the first division, a strange monster hardly having any analogues in Europe, and some other features of our lower-level football life also deserve closer examination. I won’t touch upon other countries’ affairs too often, except maybe for interesting views of our top football writers on European affairs.

Well, to introduce the stage and the actors, I’d like to set forth an overview of 2009 in the RPL - in terms of actual ratio of the results achieved and the resources spent rather than from a formal viewpoint of the official table.




1. The Big Five on their right places


These are the Big Five of the Russian football in all respects. Except for Rubin, all of them have had more or less serious problems this year (as was the case in 2008) but it hasn’t prevented them from getting their due (which wasn’t the case a year before). They all want to play in CL and, as a medium-term goal (quite a realistic one), to become more or less regular participants in at least 1\8. As a consequence, they all are rather quiet about their results in the League of Europe, certainly giving priority to the national championship. Rubin is the weakest of them in terms of personal skill and financial resources (Kazan is quite a prosperous city but its favorite pet – and a rather expensive one – is AkBars, one of the best European ice hockey teams); however, stable leadership and sophisticated tactics enable Kazan to stay on the top for the second year running. By the way, Rubin’s 62 goals evidence that the performance shown by them against Barca is not the only option available. Zenit, having engaged Luciano Spalletti, is preparing for its second “invasion of Europe” and, taking into account the finance power of its sponsor Gazprom, its prospects seem to be the most promising.

2. Effective use of scarce resources

Cases in Red are explained below

The term “scarce” has a different meaning when applied to the teams of this group. The scarcity of Moscow is much more ‘luxurious” than that of Amkar; but throughout the season Moscow was challenging the positions of the leaders, and from this point of view their resources were undoubtedly scarce. The common feature of the six is skilled coaches: ambitious and effective 40-year-old Miroslav Blazevic (a Croat from Bosnia) in Moscow; a wise midfielder of the nineties Andrey Kobelev (of the same age) in Dynamo; “grandfather” (1943) Valery Nepomnyashchy, Cameroon’s coach in a quarter-final of WC 1990, in Tomsk; Yury Krasnozhan (1963) in Nalchik; Rashid Rakhimov (1965), who went without success for a “business trip” to Lokomotiv last year, but succeeded again upon his return to Perm; and, finally, Oleg Dolmatov (1948), one of the most experienced and inventive Russian coaches, whose career was actually broken by a series of fatal accidents with members of his family ten years ago. Of the six, Tomsk’s prospects seem to be the vaguest in the coming season. Their financial troubles are of a permanent nature; last summer, rumors were even going that Zenit bought Tomsk’s striker Kornilenko for EUR 2 million on a “convincing proposal” from the VERY top to support Tom’ on the verge of collapse (the guy is by no means equal to Zenit’s level). Maybe or maybe not, but collapse of RPL’s team amid the season would have certainly had a political component.

3. Down and up (Special case #1)


In May it seemed that nothing could help Saturn. The results of Juergen Roeber’s work were disastrous. Then, he was replaced by a local man Andrey Gordeev, and the things started improving immediately. As for Roeber, his troubles resulted from a strange idea to stake on mobility and power in a team consisting largely of technically sophisticated and inventive 30+-year-old players. Or maybe he had no more ideas at all?

4. Up and down (Special case #2)


Leonid Slutsky, now appointed CSKA’s coach, managed to create a very interesting team in Samara. He was often reproached for lack of diversity in the offensive, where everything depended on Jan Koller; but it worked, and sometimes worked perfectly. A 36-old Czech giant became local fans’ icon. However, all that came to an end this summer. The team’s main sponsor suffered severely from the current crisis, and support was provided to Krylya from a local budget. Unfortunately, that support was conditioned by taking control over the team’s affairs and, as a result of certain connections and dealings between the Samara regional authorities and the authorities of Chechnya, a fixed-result game was arranged for on 17 July in Grozny (Terek – Krylya Sovetov 3:2). The quality of the actors’ performance was so poor that the scandal was great. It did not have any formal consequences due to lack of evidence, but Krylya collapsed; it was in the state of collapse that – unbelievably - they were beaten in August by St. Patrick’s FC. Indeed, it was like a severe depression with an individual. What will happen to the team now - ? For the time being, their financial problems have not been fully solved yet.

5. Once and again (Special case #3)


Poor management is the main reason of Kuban’s endless traveling between the leagues. A fully featureless team that, due to a large piece of luck, had chances up to the very end – and its absence will by no means be a loss.

6. Doomed from the start (Special case #4)

The second team of the Moscow Region had no chance in the circumstances. In the crisis, local resources were sufficient for supporting only one team and, naturally, it was Saturn. The only goal of Khimki’s presence in the RPL was to retain a professional license (it would have been cancelled in case of withdrawal from the competition).

7. No comments (Exceptional case)


Some of the most prominent Russian football writers take it as a matter of principle to refuse writing anything about Terek. Their logic is obvious: they don’t see themselves as commentators on political issues, whereas Terek’s presence in the RPL is caused, first and foremost, by political considerations. As for me personally, I find those considerations quite reasonable and well-founded; however, discussing purely football aspects of the Terek’s case seems to me senseless. The only thing I can say is that the team is more or less corresponding to the RPL level.

In the coming year, Anzhi Makhachkala and Sibir Novosibirsk join the RPL. It seems that, at best, they will join the group #2 (skilled coaches \ limited resources).

The Russian championship starts on the first Sunday of March only so we’ll have time to deal with some topics of a more general nature in the coming weeks.

Any questions on the Russian football are welcomed.