football test

The current Slovakia national team coach Vladimir Weiss worked in Saturn (Ramenskoe, Moscow Region) from February 2006 to June 2007. He came there from a modest Slovak Artmedia, who reached under his guidance the group stage of CL.

Weiss’ Russian experience wasn’t a complete failure but, certainly, it was not success either. It didn’t take him too long to build a skilled and tight performance in the defense but Saturn’s attempts in the offensive were much less impressive. Besides, Weiss’ team was extremely unlucky – injuries, foolish goals at the very end and the like. A number of Slovak players came with the coach but they obviously weren’t those capable of a decisive breakthrough. For all that, the coach’s hand was easily identifiable, and his plans on the pitch were quite clear; that is why football specialists valued Weiss’ efforts higher than the fans did.



A kind of “trademark” of Weiss’ Saturn was an abnormally large number of draws. In the Russian championship, where 90% of (supposedly) fixed-result games end in either team’s victory, it was like a certificate of honesty but the fans didn’t like it at all. At the end of Weiss’ first season they displayed a banner reading by analogy with a beverage advertisement (“Collect twenty bottle caps and get what-you-have-always-dreamed-of free of charge”): “Collect twenty draws and get a ticket to Slovakia free-of-charge”. The banner was rather bitter but the fans, in fact, weren’t. Their attitude to the Slovak was quite positive (at least, more positive than one could expect judging from his results).
In 2006, Saturn was on the 11th position in the championship owing to a large number of low-valued draws (16 in 30 games, with 7 to 7 balance of victories and defeats and a positive goal difference). In the spring of 2007, the trend persisted, and the Slovak was dismissed, without any scandal or bad-mouthing.
The probability of Weiss’ return to Russia in the future is high. Should he leave the national team, he’ll certainly be one of the best options for any of the Russian Big Five.

Juande Ramos “visited” CSKA for a month and a half this autumn. Generally, when a coach is dismissed under such circumstances it means that he proved to be fully incapable. Was it the case with Ramos? It hardly was. His further work in CSKA was conditioned, first and foremost, by their participation in CL next year and – less important – by their reaching play-off in the current CL. At the time when he started both of the goals seemed more or less attainable. Six weeks later, CSKA still had chances to qualify for play-off (and realized them a month later) but in the national championship the game was lost. It seems that Ramos acted decently in the circumstances when he warned CSKA bosses that he had made the decision to leave, thus providing a new coach with the opportunity to take over the team and to get into its affairs before the winter pause.
For all that, such a “business trip” to Russia certainly hasn’t added much to Ramos’ reputation – perhaps because all the matter was of somewhat adventurous nature.

Juande Ramos may be seen as a kind of a link between CSKA and Sevilla, who are to fight each other in the first round of CL play-off. Either side considers the other one to be the best or, at least, the second-best possible options. The mood among Russian fans and football people may be described as a moderate optimism, and the chances are seen as, say, 40 to 60 for Sevilla. Besides, the matter with failed drug tests of Berezutsky and Ignashevich was resolved in the most favourable way for CSKA; actually, the defenders were acquitted of taking prohibited substances, and the theory offered by the club was accepted in full. CSKA has engaged a young defender Kirill Nababkin from Moscow. Though very promising, he is hardly a person able to help “the Horses” in this CL. And – highly disappointing news for CSKA fans – Vagner Love will stay in Palmeiras until summer. Should he return, he might become a large problem for Sevilla’s defence, of which a young Czech Necid – a downgraded copy of Koller – doesn’t seem capable.

Luciano Spalletti has signed a three-year contract with Zenit. One more prominent foreign coach comes to Russia. Will he succeed? Expectations are high at the moment, and Zenit is planning a number of substantial purchase transactions. Goran Pandev is mentioned again in this connection. No doubt, Zenit needs him but does he need Zenit? This summer, he was not too enthusiastic about the prospect.
Serious foreign coaches started coming to Russia in the early 2000s. Their careers here were very different but, in the aggregate, the opinion on their work is certainly positive. Short references of some of them will be given in this and the following posts.



Nevio Scala came to Spartak in the spring of 2003 when the best Russian team of the 1990s was at the lowest point of the crisis. A horrible autumn of 2002, with 6 defeats and 2:18 goal difference in CL; administrative disorder; strange transfers with an easily identifiable corruption component – all that formed the setting in which Scala had to start. Had he come some months later, his career in Russia might have lasted up to now. Those who worked with him speak with great respect of his qualification, but it was of no importance in the circumstances. Having tinkered with all that stuff for about half a year, he resigned.

Artur Jorge replaced Valery Gazzaev in CSKA at the beginning of 2004. In 2003, CSKA won the championship but failed shamefully in the CL preliminary round, beaten by Vardar Skopje. Although the champions, CSKA played a rather poor – “horsy” (© V. Petrzela) - football, and the Portuguese was invited to change the things. Soon it became obvious that such a person – without the slightest sign of drive – cannot manage the team effectively. Serenity was his permanent condition, and it seemed that he didn’t care at all about the developments on the pitch. He was dismissed in July 2004, when CSKA was on the 4th position in the championship, replaced again by Gazzaev, who won a lot of titles in the following couple of years, including UEFA Cup in 2005. But Jorge’s role in CSKA’s victories of 2005-2006 was very large. After his work, the talks of “horsy” football became a thing of the past (though the nickname “horses” survived and became common). He was not able to lead the team, but he injected a heavy portion of invention into its performance; and Gazzaev was wise enough not to destroy what the Portuguese had done.
From that time on, it has become common to speak of Jorge somewhat ironically or not to mention him at all. However, a trend is obvious: the more independent a football writer is of the Russian football establishment, the more readily he gives the Portuguese his due.

The first round of CL is over. Rubin did its best in Milan, but its chances were lowered dramatically by absence of two leading defenders (Ansaldi and Sharonov) and the leading striker Bukharov. For all that, Kazan’s performance was quite attractive, and there were periods when the things might have gone quite another way. CSKA didn’t have any problems with Besiktas. It was expected that the Turks would exert heavy pressure on our defense, but nothing of the kind happened. Besiktas was surprisingly unimpressive, especially if compared with Fenerbahce two years ago. CSKA’s prospects in February depend heavily on the effectiveness of their winter transfer campaign. In their current condition, they have no chances at all. In addition, Sergey Ignashevich and Alexey Berezutsky have problems with their drug tests in Manchester. The theory offered by CSKA’s management to explain the matter seems to be more or less convincing, but several months (at least) of disqualification are inevitable in the circumstances, and in the absence of the two a large hole opens wide in the center of defense.
As for Rubin, they are unlikely to adapt their pre-season arrangements to EL. If your resources are limited, starting the season in February means in most cases to get exhausted by November – a problem that has been troubling our teams for decades.

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.