16 year old Matthew Brown reflects on a football revolutionary. (His blog, containing non-Russian football, can be found here: Matty’s Footy Thoughts)

This article relies heavily on several excellent sources – Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson (buy it here), La Roja by Jimmy Burns (buy it here), and this article. Inverting the Pyramid provides great analysis on the history of football tactics and helped me with this hard to research, especially for non-Russian speakers, period of Russian football history. The book La Roja helped me with the Basque tour, while the article linked above provided more depth on Dynamo Moscow’s visit to England.

Arkadyev and early Russian football

Boris Arkadyev was born on September 21, 1899, in St. Petersburg. He had a playing career, appearing as a midfielder for Russkabel Moscow, Sakharniki Moscow, RkimA and Metallurg Moscow, between 1920 – 1936. Yet Arkadyev was to influence football to this day with his footballing ideas, from his time as a manager.

Before the Russian revolution, football in Russia was widespread, with nearly 200 teams competing in czarist Russia in 1914. After the 1917 revolution, interest in football continued to rise, thanks to the RSFSR Championships. However, the Championships were of a poor quality and standard. In 1936, Russia finally installed a national football league, called the Soviet Top League. While the league was organised better than the RSFSR Championships, it was soon exposed that the change had come too late.

Russian football was still heavily influenced by the British, most of whom were long gone. One lasting relic was the ineffective and outdated 2-3-5 formation. The majority of teams outside Russia, in order to compete, had switched to a Herbert Chapman W-M formation (3-2-2-3). The USSR did not have its weaknesses exploited, as it was restricted from playing foreign sides – the USSR only joined FIFA in 1947. As a result, all Russian teams played a 2-3-5, thinking that it was by far the best formation. A team cannot learn from their lessons if the lessons are not being taught.

The W-M

The Basques come to town and Russia learns

All was to change in 1937, as Russia hosted a Basque ‘national’ team, called the Euzkadi, who were making the first stop of their world tour. The tour was aimed at raising world awareness for the Basque fight in the Spanish civil war. Interest in football was at an all time high in Soviet Russia, with most fans expecting Mother Russia to prevail.

The fans were in for a horrible surprise. The Basque side embarrassed the Russian people. Maybe complacency was an issue in the first game, with Lokomotiv Moscow suffering a 5-1 annihilation. However, with the margin of defeat being so large the excuse of complacency should not be considered seriously.

Dynamo Moscow, having seen the severe beating that Lokomotiv suffered, managed to lose by a more respectable 2-1 score line. Further face was saved when a Leningrad XI struggled to a 2-2 draw. Another blow was to come though, with the Basques returning to the capital, beating the Dynamo Central Council’s Select XI 7-4. The Select XI was regarded by many, at the time, as the best Russian side ever assembled. While the Basques may have had better players than the Russian sides – six Basques appeared for Spain in the 1934 World Cup – the differing systems were the main reason why the Basques went unbeaten in their first four games.

The state was furious with the poor results; with Soviet propaganda struggling to portray Russia in anything other than a bad way. Spartak Moscow were up next for the Basques, and the pressure on the Krasno-Belye (Red-Whites) was intense. Russia was desperate to end the humiliation, and so was the head of Spartak’s coaching council – Nikolai Starostin. (Starostin was also the founder of Spartak. Roughly six years later, he would be sent to the Siberian Gulag for 10 years, as part of Stalin’s “Great Purge”.) This was the Basques’ last game in Russia, so the game was Russia’s last chance.

The Basque squad which tormented the USSR

Starostin noticed the gap in player quality, one small reason for the results. As a result, he recruited many players from other Eastern European clubs. He also realised that Russian teams were mostly struggling against the Basques because of the obsolete 2-3-5. Thus, he converted his centre-half (in modern day terms a centre-midfielder) into a third-back (a third defender in a centre-back role). The move was designed to restrict prolific Basque centre-forward Isodro Langara.

As Nikolai Starostin’s brother, Alexander Starostin, recalls, Spartak’s change against the Basques had been implemented before, in a Spartak tour of Norway: “Spartak used a defensive version of the W-M by enhancing the two backs with a half-back. When necessary, both the insides drew back.” (Insides=inside forwards.) The tactic was successful for Spartak, and the Muscovites tried to employ the system in Russia, but the third-back was soon made redundant after a 5-2 loss to bitter rivals Dynamo Moscow. Spartak then backtracked to the previous 2-3-5.

Nikolai Starostin, looking back on using the defensive W-M system again, said: “Now came the second attempt, again in a friendly, but this time in a very important international encounter. It was a huge risk.” As mentioned previously, Spartak were under huge pressure from people who ran the USSR. Numerous high-profile party officials stayed the night at the team’s training camp in Tarasovka, including Ivan Kharchenko, the chairman of the Committee of Physical Culture. Starostin recalls, in his autobiography Football through the years, “All hell broke loose! There were letters, telegrams, and calls giving us advice and wishing us good luck. I was summoned to several bosses of different ranks and they explained that the whole of the country was waiting on our victory.” Starostin sums up the Russians’ attitudes towards the match, again in his autobiography: “Spartak was the last hope.”

Spartak won the match 6-2, after they had been pegged back twice by the Basques. A debatable penalty was awarded to the home team, and Viktor Shylovski converted it on the 57th minute. Shylovski was one of the players whom Starostin had drafted in, on this occasion from Dynamo Kyiv. Vladimir Stepanov took most of the plaudits, after an impressive hat-trick. Yet, Nikolai Starostin was keen to praise his brother, Alexander Starostin, who was the man who occupied the third-back role, describing his game as “brilliant”. This praise was greeted with incredulity by Russian press and Spartak ‘keeper Anatoly Akimov. Akimov highlighted that Langara, the man who Spartak had tried to target with the third-back, had scored one goal and dominated Alexander Starostin.

The Basques losing on their stop in the USSR proved to be an isolated event. They went on to beat Dynamo Kyiv, Dynamo Tbilisi, a Georgia XI and a Minsk XI. The USSR was once again embarrassed and even more angry. Lessons had been taught, as Pravda wrote: “The performances of the Basque country in the USSR showed that our best teams are far from high quality.” Later, in the same article, written under the expectant headline “Soviet Players should become Invincible”, Pravda acknowledged: “It is clear that improving the quality of Soviet teams depends directly on matches against serious opposition. The matches against the Basques have been highly beneficial to our players.”

Now that the Basques had taught the lessons, Russia had to learn. Boris Arkadyev was to take the lessons the most seriously, and to use them to revolutionise football…

Starostin showed Russia that W-M was the only way to beat the Basques

Arkadyev takes Starostin’s W-M to a new level

Boris Arkadyev took over at English founded Dynamo Moscow in 1936, after an average spell at Metallurg Moscow. He impressed initially, doing the league and cup double in his first season. After the Basques had come and made a mockery of the 2-3-5, Arkadyev, like all Russian managers, had to rethink. “After the Basque tour, all the leading Soviet teams started to reorganise in the spirit of the new system,” Arkadyev wrote. “Torpedo moved ahead of their opponents in that respect and, having the advantage in tactics, had a great first half of the season in 1938 and by 1939 all of our [USSR] teams were playing with the new system.”

The Championships after the Basque tour were won by Spartak, a side that had clearly learnt from beating the Basques. Dynamo struggled, finishing 5th in 1938 and 9th in 1939. Arkadyev, under pressure from infamous KGB head and club benefactor Lavrentiy Beria, needed to solve things quickly. (In June 1937, Beria said in a speech, “Let our enemies know that anyone who attempts to raise a hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of Lenin and Stalin, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed.”)

Arkadyev thought that despite the gap in quality between the Basques and the Russian teams in ’37, better tactics were much more important than better players. Despite two bad seasons, Arkadyev was certain that more changes needed to be made, instead of reverting from W-M to 2-3-5. At a pre-season training base, in Gagry, he changed things for the better. He aimed to use a more polished version of the W-M. At Camp Gagry, in February 1940, he spent two hours briefing the players on tactics.

“With the third-back, lots of our and foreign clubs employed so-called roaming players in attack” he outlined. “This creative searching didn’t go a long way, but it turned out to be a beginning of a radical perestroika in our football tactics. To be honest, some players started to roam for reasons that had nothing to do with tactics. Sometimes it was simply because he had great strength, speed or stamina that drew him out of his territorial area, and once he had left his home, he began to roam around the field. So you had four players who would hold an orthodox position and move to and fro in the channels, and then suddenly you would have one player who would start to disrupt their standard movements by running diagonally or left to right. That made it difficult for the defending team to follow him, and other forwards benefited because they had a free team-mate to whom they could pass.”

The above passage needs to be examined. While other teams were using “roaming players in attack”, most of these players were roaming by their own accord. The ones who had been told to roam were part of a miniscule group. Arkadyev started to instruct his players to roam more and more, in designated areas designed to pull teams apart. This was a radical move. The fluidity of the players increased, and just like total football or tiki-taka, the movement was integral to the tactic. Arkadyev wasn’t finished though…

After three games, Dynamo’s record for the 1940 season was zero wins, two draws and one loss. Following the third game, a defeat against Dynamo Tbilisi (a side the Basques had beat), Arkadyev saved his side’s season. He made the players write match critiques on themselves and their fellow team-mates. The players became more of a team, more of a unit – a key part of Arkadyev’s tactic. The result was instantaneous, with Dynamo winning the 1940 Soviet Top League. Their record was sixteen wins, four draws and four losses. A goal difference of plus forty-four was by far the best in the league, with the second best total being plus twenty-six. Dynamo centre-forward Sergei Solovyov scored twenty-one league goals, a joint-best league total. A key feature of Dynamo, as well as a fluid system, was short-passing and a quick tempo. This is just like Ajax, The Netherlands for a large spell, and present day Barcelona.

Arkadyev provides further insight into his 1940 team and how they scored goals: “Our players worked to move from a schematic W-M to breathe the Russian soul into the English invention, to add our neglect of dogma,” he echoed. “We confused the opposition, leaving them without weaponry with our sudden movements. Our left-winger, Segei Ilyin, scored most of his goals from the centre-forward position, our right-winger, Mikhail Semichastny, from inside-left and our centre-forward, Sergei Solovyov, from the flanks.”

Sergei Solovyov – a great centre-forward. Check out the facial hair!

The immediate impact and further development

The press were in raptures with the tactic, heralding it as “organised disorder”. Opponents struggled to find ways of dealing with the system. Teams, who used to make players defend their own area of the pitch, tried man-marking. Man-marking was commonly deployed in an attempt to combat the system and was ineffective: Arkadyev just made his players play even more fluidly with interchanges recurring more regularly. Arkadyev elaborates on his thinking: “with the transition of the defensive line from a zonal game to marking specific opponents, it became tactically logical to have all the attackers and even the midfielders roaming, while having all the defenders switch to a mobile system, following their opponents according to where they went.”

The change in marking was a huge step forward for the USSR. The W-M in other countries had come with man-marking. Yet in Soviet football, teams did not realise that the “zonal game”, not to be confused with zonal-marking, was unsuitable for the W-M. Arkadyev’s tactic brought Soviet football up to a continentally competitive level.

When the Nazis invaded Russia, The Soviet Top League was suspended, with all of the players heading off to fight in the battle of The Motherland vs The Fatherland. In 1943, Arkadyev, too old to fight, left Dynamo for CDKA Moscow (now CSKA Moscow). He won 5 championships with CDKA, until the club was disbanded by Stalin, after Stalin blamed CDKA for the 1952 Olympics loss to Yugoslavia. (Arkadyev was manager of the Soviet Union when they lost 3-1 to Yugoslavia in the first-round of their first ever Olympics.)

Arkadyev continued to use his tactic and over time, and as he tweaked it to become even more effective, one of the halves became more defensive. In the present-day, we would describe this as a centre-midfielder becoming a centre-defensive midfielder. The more defensive half provided greater coverage for the back three, causing one inside-forward (a centre-attacking midfielder) to drop further down the pitch to cover the defensive halve. As a result, the W-M became more of a 3-1-2-1-3. Some even suggest that Arkadyev was the first to utilise a flat back four, including the esteemed Russian football historian Axel Vartanyan.

Formation change from W-M to 3-1-2-1-3

Passovotchka

Dynamo Moscow, without Arkadyev and with new manager Mikhail Yakushin, started a peace-celebrating tour after World War II. Their first game was against Chelsea, and showed just how much Arkadyev had changed the originally English W-M. Dynamo hadn’t changed anything tactically after Arkadyev had departed. (The 3-1-2-1-3 developed later on.) The players were just more used to their roles, the roles which Arkadyev had given to them.

The English FA fell out with the Soviet FA almost immediately, over disputes based mainly on laws of the game, such as charging. The Daily Express pointed out that the barracks where Dynamo had to stay were from a time “when men were men and soldiers weren’t expected to have hot beds.” Vadim Sinyavsky, the Russian radio commentator covering the game, provided Soviets back in the USSR with a detailed description of Dynamo’s experience on arrival: “In England, the fatherland of football, we were met according to the English fashion: rather dryly without flags, music or flowers. Officials of the British federation coldly shook our hands and then threw us to the journalists to be torn to pieces. But we also have our customs. We do not like to talk in vain, so we decided to keep quiet for the time-being. The players were taken to the Guards Barracks to be housed, but we discovered mould on the walls, cobwebs and hard bolsters instead of pillows. We did not like this, and we went to the Soviet Embassy, where we stayed the night.

Frank Butler, a high-profile Daily Express journalist, remarked “It is possible that the Russians do not consider that they could do themselves justice in such a game.” Paul Irwin was incredibly outspoken in his opinion of the Russians, “They are not nearly good enough to play our class of professional teams,” he retorted. “Their players are simply a set of very earnest amateurs… I say this confidently. In three hours’ football….they look an ordinary lot. Now it may be argued that they are reserving their real form for the Chelsea match. I won’t have that. No set of players is clever enough to hide its form over three hours/ There must be a flash of form, but none arrived from the Russians. They have a fairly good idea of passing, but nearly all their work is done standing still. And they are so slow that you can almost hear them think.” The British believed that a side from the home of football was far superior to any side.

There was, though, a great sense of curiosity, as Brian Glanville indicates in his book, Soccer Nemesis: “Mingled with these qualities, one suspects was a strong element of curiosity, sustained by the hoary Russian myth.” Russia, deep behind the Iron Curtain, was a land that excited as well as worried the British public.

Chelsea had been spending big money, in an attempt to become top dogs in London. Muscovite newspaper Izvestia claimed that Chelsea were: “Determined to beat Dynamo at all costs, the club has spent thousands of pounds to secure some of Britain’s best footballers. For instance [they] paid £14,000 for the famous Tommy Lawton, [just] so that he could play against Dynamo.”

Around 100,000 turned up to see Chelsea vs Dynamo at Stamford Bridge

Even before kick-off, Dynamo surprised people. Dynamo used two balls in the warm-up, contrasting heavily with the traditional number of one. When the Russians handed a bouquet of flowers to each Chelsea player, just before kick-off, the crowd went wild. The FA’s poor welcome and hospitality was put to shame.

Dynamo were unlucky in the first half, suffering two goals against the run of play. They also missed a penalty in the first half, and it looked like luck was against the visitors on this occasion. One key feature of their play was expansive, flowing football: Arkadyev-style. The Russians were again the better side in the second-half and made the game even more exciting with around 20 minutes remaining. Inside-right Vasili Kartsev scored with an impressive low shot: “Steady, comrades, steady,” roared the excited sole Russian commentator, Sinyavsky, as Dynamo moved forwards. “Take a glass of water…. Yes…yes… he’s through, he’s scored. Yes comrades, you can kiss him.” Seven minutes later, Kartsev cut-backed to outside-right Evgeny Archangelskiy, who tapped home. It was a deserved equaliser for Dynamo, who despite the score line had been utterly dominant. However, it looked like Russian hearts would be broken, as Tommy Lawton justified his fee with a typical bullet header. Yet more drama was in store, as Dynamo’s Vsyevolod Bobrov got another equaliser, which was about 4 yards offside. The goal stood, to the crowd’s delight.

Brian Glanville was full of praise for Dynamo, writing: “From first to last their football remained cogent and incisive, a triumph of socialism over individualism, for the ball was never held by one man, but transferred bewilderingly and immediately to another.” Former Arsenal inside-forward, Alex James, disagreed with Glanville, in his column for the News of the World “[Dynamo’s success] lies in teamwork to which there is a pattern. There is no individualist in the side such as a Matthews or a Carter. They play to a plan, repeating it over and over again, and they show little variation. It would be quite easy to find a counter-method to beat them. This lack of individuals is a great weakness.” James was wrong; Dynamo did have great players, but they played as one.

Dynamo manager, Yakushin, agreed with Glanville’s thoughts. “The principle of collective play is the guiding one in Soviet football,” he said. “A player must not only be good in general; he must be good for the particular team.” When asked about Stanley Matthews, he responded: “His individual qualities are high, but we put collective football first and individual football second, so we do not favour his style as we think teamwork would suffer.”

The British were astonished at Dynamo’s play. Daily Express journalist Frank Butler described the game as “one of the most entertaining exhibitions of football ever seen on an English football field.” Former Glasgow Rangers captain Davie Meiklejohn wrote in the Daily Record: “They interchanged positions to the extent of the outside-left running over to the right-wing and vice versa. I have never seen football played like it. It was a Chinese puzzle to try to follow the players in their as it was given [sic] in the programme. They simply wandered here and there at will, but the most remarkable feature of it all, they never got in each other’s way.” Chelsea left-back Albert Tennant moaned, “We could hardly keep up with them.”

Dynamo stayed unbeaten in their tour of Britain. They defeated Arsenal 4-3 after a hugely controversial game, where Dynamo fielded twelve players at some points and the Russian referee made some favourable decisions towards Dynamo. Aside from that dodgy game, the Russians did themselves proud. Their last match was a 2-2 draw with Rangers in front of 92,000 at Ibrox. Cardiff manager, Cyril Spiers, remarked after a 10-1 defeat: “[Dynamo] are the finest team I’ve ever seen. They are a match for any side in Britain. They are a machine, not an ordinary football team.” Despite Dynamo outlining at the start that they would not play a national side, many wanted to see this happen. LV Manning in the Daily Sketch was one outspoken advocate of Dynamo facing a national side: “They are already firmly established as the greatest club side ever to visit this island from overseas and are set for a triumphant tour, during which I doubt they will ever be beaten by a full English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish XI. Whatever difficulties are in the way, they must be given full internationals – preferably at Wembley or Hampden.”

Dynamo were greeted as heroes when they returned back to the USSR. A 90-page booklet with autographs, cartoons, photos and match-reports was quickly produced. The Russian authorities were ecstatic with their undefeated players. They used this as propaganda. Diplomatically it had been a failure, but Dynamo, using Arkadyev’s methods, had shocked the creator.

The Dynamo squad before the Chelsea match

Arkadyev’s legacy

Despite the success of the Dynamo tour being down to Arkadyev, relatively little praise was given to him. The man should be praised and known as the one who was brave enough to change radically. He made Russian football respectable. He learnt from the Basques, taking the bog-standard W-M to new heights. His tactics staggered Britain. He laid the foundations for total football, with quicker passing, and crucially, interchanging players. The Hungarians then took this idea to Wembley, battering England 6-3. The great period of Dutch football, “total football”, was based on Arkadyev’s philosophy. Johan Cruyff took this to Barcelona. Pep Guardiola used it at Barcelona with Messi. He is now at Bayern München, with success expected. Remember, it all stemmed from Arkadyev telling his players to roam.

Boris Arkadyev should be regarded as a footballing legend. Pass and move football isn’t Dutch or even Hungarian, it is Russian. Arkadyev wrote two books: Football tactics and Midfielders play. They are football bibles in Eastern Europe. They should be football bibles for world football.

CSKA Moscow’s ultras have long had a reputation for violent and racist behavior. Last season, the ultras drew unwanted attention to the Russian champions in the Champions League twice. First, they were caught yelling racial slurs at Manchester City’s Ivorian midfielder Yaya Touré, leading UEFA to punish them by closing the ultra’s stand in CSKA’s stadium Arena Khimki.

Piara Powar, the executive director of FARE (Football Against Racism Europe), tried to convince UEFA to give CSKA a full stadium ban, but those are only given after a second offence. CSKA’s second offence came in the last group match against Czech side Viktoria Plzen, when their fans were found guilty of racist abuse as well as using fascist slogans. And if this was not enough, 15 CSKA fans were arrested in Prague a few days later for giving Nazi salutes and attacking police officers.

The punishment for the incident in Plzen was one Champions League game in Moscow without spectators. But before CSKA had the opportunity to even serve their punishment, their fans caused trouble in Rome in their first Champions League game this season. After the game, CSKA was punished for “racist behavior of supporters”, “crowd disturbance” and “setting off/throwing of fireworks and missiles” by UEFA. As punishment, CSKA was ordered to play their next three UEFA competition home matches behind closed doors. They were also fined €200.000, and their fans were banned from buying tickets to the next two Champions League away games.

After the horrible scenes in Rome, a group of CSKA fans started a social media campaign called #CSKAFansAgainstRacism. I am happy to bring you an interview with the man behind the campaign.

First, can you tell me a bit about yourself?

We’re a group of dedicated CSKA fans who wants to change general perception of the Club’s supporters, to show “the other side”–the bright side–of our legendary club with its great traditions.

CSKA midfielder Alan Dzagoev with a strong message to the fans.

What made you start the #CSKAFansAgainstRacism campaign?

The incident in Rome was the point where we said “enough is enough”. CSKA’s international image was completely ruined. We are perceived not as a team that won UEFA Cup, but as one which has awful racist fans, who focus only on destroying things and abusing black people.

So, we wanted to show the international football community that those who are mentioned only as racist hooligans are in the absolute minority. But, unfortunately, this small marginal group is on the front pages of the mainstream media and forms our image in the public.

The last reason why we started our campaign was that we hoped to persuade UEFA officials not to close our stadium again, as we sincerely believe that it won’t solve the problem. Especially during Champions League home games, we wanted to prove to the international football family that racism is unacceptable among CSKA supporters. We planned many colorful anti-racist performances. That would have been the best support to UEFAs fight against racism. The whole stadium would have been involved in an anti-racist campaign. Not UEFA ordered it, but because people wanted to show their solidarity.

What is more damaging, the decision gave that marginal group of racists the feeling that “they are the owners” of the stadium and can decide upon our “fate” as they want. Unfortunately, nobody listened to us.

Can you tell a bit about the campaign, your goals and how you try to achieve them?

Firstly, as we mentioned, we want to “mend” the image of our club as we believe that it’s unfairly perceived in the football community. We do have problems with our fans, but they will never represent the absolute majority of CSKA supporters who strongly oppose any racist or fascist ideas.

Secondly, we realize perfectly that the fight against this evil is a long-lasting process that requires much effort. That’s why we’re incredibly happy that a young generation of CSKA fans has joined our social network accounts. They sent their support in the form of nice pictures, banners, collages, etc. We try to reply to each letter and thank them for their great level of solidarity. These bright kids will replace the current fans at the stadium and they will hopefully represent different ideals.

We understand that only education can solve the problem, that’s why we don’t expect any immediate changes or miracles. So, as thousands of different people joined us in social network accounts, we have published photos and messages of support every day. If we create an alternative role model for fans, that would be the greatest achievement of our campaign.

What do CSKA fans think about your campaign?

There were different groups of people and reactions. Some ultras didn’t like it, as they believe they’re fighting for the right ideals. But surprisingly we received many e-mails from our ultras, where we managed to constructively discuss the current situation in the fan movement. But mostly, of course, we got stunning support from all generations of CSKA fans: letters of support tweets with our hashtag #CSKAFansAgainstRacism, photos, etc.

Are you surprised how much attention the campaign has gotten so far?

Definitely we are. Our campaign showed that there was a “hidden demand” for such a movement. We’re glad to further discussion among our fans of what kind of future we want for our club. It’s enough to read hundreds of comments under our petition to UEFA to understand how people are worried about their Club and sincerely want to help.** Moreover, we want to thank allthe big Russian sports websites for writing about our campaign.

Have you been in contact with CSKA Moscow (management)? What do they think of the campaign and are they trying to help?

Yes, club management fully supports our campaign. They continuously retweet and repost our messages and photos in social network accounts, so the number of fans joining us is increasing every day.

CSKA will play their next three Champions League matches behind closed doors because of the Rome riots. What do you think of the punishment?

As we’ve already mentioned, an empty stadium is only an attempt to “hide” the problem: “no people – no racism”. If this is the logic, than it is absolutely identical with the racists logic, who claim: “no black people – no racism”. An empty stadium is a “dehumanization” of football. It’s like the death penalty in judicial law. It has been scientifically proven that it doesn’t affect the criminal rate and has no deterrence effect on a potential criminal. The European Union, for example, holds a strong and principled position against the death penalty. We sincerely do not understand why UEFA officials are using such a measure, which kills the soul of the game we love.

Last year CSKA was punished after the home game against Manchester City and the away game against Viktoria Plzen. Did anything change after the punishments?

Yes. During home games, CSKA had no bad recordings at all. Security measures were tightened and pressure on ultras from ordinary supporters increased, so everything was fine. But the incidents in Plzen and Rome were out of CSKA’s control. UEFA charged Roma with insufficient organization of the match. This means that the home club is liable for security and that it failed to provide necessary security. Moreover, one of CSKA’s fans was seriously wounded in a knife attack before the match, but nobody cared about that. We sincerely don’t understand why innocent fans in Moscow are being punished so severely for the awful work of the Italian police? How could our fans bring flares and missiles to the stadium? How could the club management control which banners were displayed in Rome? We will never defend those who awfully behaved there, but we really can’t find the logic behind this punishment.

Do you think the clubs and Russian authorities do enough to fight racism? If not, what should be changed?

We can speak only for CSKA, as we don’t know what other clubs are doing. CSKA posted a video where CSKA players condemn any act of racism. But we should understand that Evgeny Giner can’t replace the mother or father of each fan.

Russian authorities seem not to be ready or willing to fight this problem. Only certain punishment can fundamentally change the situation. The personal responsibility of each fan seems to be the key to the solution, but nobody cares about it at the moment.

Have fans of other Russian clubs supported your initiative?

No, we haven’t received any support so far.

Has the new Fan Law, enacted in January, changed anything?

Unfortunately, not. I can just cite the Russian Premier League’s head of security Alexander Meytin who recently told Russia’s best-selling sports daily Sport-Express that they don’t have any effective procedure that they can implement to make the situation better. So, the so-called “Fan Law” only existed on paper. According to Meytin, if a banned hooligan wants to find his or her way into the stadium today, he or she will easily do that. So, if the League’s head of security says that, no additional comment about the law itself is actually needed.

Why do you think racism is this big of a problem in Russian football?

Frankly, this is the paradox and nonsensical part for us as well. How could the country, which had a decisive impact in saving the World from fascism, face such a big challenge is impossible for us to explain. How can the grandchildren of World War II veterans chant racial abuse? We have really no explanation for that.

Do you feel the Western media are too one-sided in their coverage of Russian football?

This is one of the most disappointing issues for us. A couple of days after we started our campaign, we wrote to all Western mainstream media representatives, but nobody replied. It seems that only bad news from Russia is attractive. When a small group of CSKA fans is involved in an ugly issue they immediately report it, but when thousands join an anti-racist initiative nobody is interested in it. Could you just imagine what would happen if we created a group “CSKA Fans Support Racism”? We would become world famous! It seems that as long as bad news is coming from Russia, everything is fine for Western journalists. Good news doesn’t sell.

The only NGO that almost immediately replied to us was FARE.  We express our deepest gratitude to them for their sincere and full support of our campaign.

But despite the complete silence of the Western media we will fight for the bright future of our kids! That’s why we thank you for this interview! With your help, we will simply show the rest of the world that everything is not as bad in Russia as it’s portrayed in their home countries.

Join us! // Присоединяйтесь к нам
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WeAreCSKA
Twitter: http://twitter.com/WeAreCSKA11
VK: http://vk.com/wearecska11
Instagram: http://instagram.com/wearecska

The petition can be found and signed here: http://www.change.org/p/uefa-do-not-punish-innocent-cska-fans

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Follow Toke Møller Theilade on Twitter: @TokeTheilade

Dmitri, Dmitri, Dmitri Alenichev… this was how FC Porto’s supporters saluted the Russian midfielder every time he stepped foot on the pitch. I remember how happy I was when the Portuguese team signed Alenichev back in 2000, after he experienced some tough times both at AS Roma and Perugia, a team that allegedly owed him a considerable amount of money, which he chose not to receive in order to join FC Porto almost 15 years ago.

Alenichev’s stint at the two-time European champions was remarkable and it was probably where he enjoyed some of the best years of his splendid career. The Melioratorov-born midfielder currently remains as the only Russian footballer ever to have lifted the UEFA Champions League trophy, when, while at FC Porto, he helped his team to defeat AS Monaco in Gelsenkirchen by scoring the team’s final goal.

When he decided to hang up his boots back in 2006, after a disappointing return to Spartak Moscow, Alenichev embraced several different projects but it was in the industrial city of Tula that he found a new home and an extremely unlikely environment to achieve such a considerable amount of success.

Arsenal Tula are the living proof that not everything in football these days is related to outrageous amounts of money and that there is still a place, in the modern game, for those romantic minds that still believe in the essence of the science called football.

Alenichev took the helm of the team back in 2011 and ever since then Arsenal have kept climbing, year after year, the Russian football hierarchy. Aided by several of Spartak’s Russian former internationals, such as Titov, Khlestov and Filimonov (who is still the team’s goalkeeper at the age of 40) during the early stages of his managing career at the club, Alenichev broke all shackles and transformed a once amateur team into a surprising newcomer to the Russian football top flight in just three years.

The Pushkari’s modest campaign among the Russian football big dogs has, nevertheless, already triggered the usual criticism from those pundits who still believe that a team with no experience at the Russian football top tier should be able to make an immediate stand against far more mature and wealthy teams. Well, such things rarely happen in football and although I consider myself to be a football romantic, I am fully aware that managing a football team in real life is definitely not the same thing of achieving unlikely success with your local team while playing Football Manager or some other football simulation game on your personal computer back on your living-room couch.

Taking a closer look at Arsenal’s current team, one cannot ignore the fact of them only having two foreign players (the Montenegrin journeyman Mladen Kascelan and the Slovak left-back Lukas Tesak) in their ranks, something very rare in Russian football these days. Arsenal are, by far, the team with the highest proportion of Russian players in the RPL and certainly have one of the lowest budgets but that does not prevent them from playing some attractive and possession-based football, similar to the one Alenichev learned while at Spartak Moscow under Romantsev’s stewardship, for which the Russian former midfielder has already confessed to have a profound admiration.

Alenichev is a tactics connaisseur and he started the season using a 3-4-2-1 system, a clear variation of a 3-4-3 style he applied in the National Football League last term, but he was forced to change that bold approach to another configuration with four men back in the defense, because of the team’s leaky defense line. Currently, Alenichev opted for something similar to a 4-1-4-1 style, with all the team’s lines playing very close to each other in order to try and restrain the space created between lines, which has proven to be lethal to the team early this season.

With just four goals scored so far this season, Arsenal Tula have in Artur Maloyan, a “product” of Spartak Moscow’s academy, their top scorer, but there are also several other interesting Russian players in the team: Sergey Kuznetsov, who was a great promise ten years ago while at Dynamo, Aleksandr Zotov, currently on loan from Spartak Moscow, and Dmitry Smirnov, a 34 year old journeyman who has a long career at RPL.

Alenichev is the image of a new generation of high quality Russian head coaches, who nurture an immense passion for the game and that somehow want to rekindle the football style that transformed Romantsev’s Spartak from the early 1990s into one of the most interesting teams in the history of European football, as we can understand from this excerpt of an interview he gave a while ago: “We want to play the Spartak football,” (…) “Of course, we can’t replicate the great Spartak side of the 90s, but it is possible to play well even with our squad. We succeed sometimes, and the players are enjoying themselves. We are playing the game that pleases spectators. That’s the way it should be, even if we will lose sometimes. The players will get pleasure even in the games they lost. When you love what you are doing, the results will come.”

Curiously, at the end of last Sunday’s clash between Spartak Moscow and Arsenal Tula, held at the glamorous Otkrytie Arena, Spartachi’s newcomer Roman Shirokov told the media that Alenichev’s team is currently more like Spartak then Spartak itself, highlighting the quality attacking football the team produces.

Regardless of what the future might hold both for Arsenal and Dmitry Alenichev (one of my favourite players of all time), a well-known T.S. Eliot quote always comes to my mind, which I think puts into words what the former Spartak and FC Porto’s midfielder has been achieving at the helm of the modest Tula team: “Great simplicity is only won by an intense moment or by years of intelligent effort.”

Follow Joel Amorim on Twitter: @Vostok1981

Exactly nine years ago, the 16^th of November 2005, a few months after CSKA Moscow’s UEFA Cup victory brought Russian football back on the European football map, I had my first live experience with Russian football. The Danish U21 national team faced Russia in the final playoff match before the 2006 U21 EURO. I have seen many football matches around Europe since, but even today I often think about this particular one, and I believe it is one of the reasons why I today follow Russian football closely.

I was 14 years old when the Russians came to Denmark in their pursuit of a spot in the 2006 EURO. Denmark had won the first game 1-0 in Krasnodar, and the expectations for the Danish team were certainly high. My brother and I had looked forward to the match for a while, because the Danish team consisted of many of our favorite players from Brøndby. Together with more than 11.000 other fans my brother, father and I went to Brøndby Stadium, and we certainly did not regret it.

The Danish side was considered as the most talented since the 1980’s Danish Dynamite team with stars like Frank Arnesen, Allan Simonsen, Michael Laudrup and Preben Elkjær, and people spoke about them as possible champions for the 2006 EUROs if we qualified. Most of the Danish players were already getting regular playing time in the Danish Superliga and some of them had even left the country to play in Europe’s biggest leagues. One of the profiles on the Danish team was the midfielder Thomas Kahlenberg, who was my favorite player. He had left Brøndby for French side Auxerre a few months before the game was played and was on his way to stardom. Even though Denmark had won the first game 1-0, we were not sure they would qualify, despite the great team, because Brøndby’s central defender Daniel Agger was out with a terrible injury.

I had followed CSKA Moscow’s amazing UEFA Cup campaign a few months earlier and therefore I recognized a few players from Russia’s squad; the gifted left winger Yuri Zhirkov and the goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev, but the rest were completely unknown to me back then. When I look at the Russian team today the story is different. Their team consists of many players who won many titles and had great success on the highest level. Besides the already mentioned CSKA stars, Igor Denisov, Vladimir Bystrov, Aleksandr Sheshukov, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov and Kirill Nababkin were all in the starting line up as well. On the bench, Russia had Vladimir Gabulov, Aleksandr Bukharov, Aleksandr Samedov, Igor Lebedenko and Andrei Eschenko among others.

The game had barely begun before Zhirkov scored for Russia. After 82 seconds the Russians were in front with a 1-0 lead, and the entire crowd now feared another international tournament without Danish participation. Fortunately, the later Mainz and Celtic player Morten “Duncan” Rasmussen equalized in the seventh minute, which brought Denmark in front again. After 15 minutes, Denmark scored again when they caught the Russian defenders off guard after a long throw-in on Denmark’s half of the pitch. This brought Denmark in front 3-1 on aggregate, which lasted until halftime, despite Russia having a few very good chances.

In the second half, Akinfeev committed a strange and incredibly foolish penalty when he kicked a Danish player on the leg. Akinfeev punched a Danish cross away from the goal and started a Russian counter attack, but afterwards he decided to kick a Danish player, who was running back towards Denmarks goal with his back to Akinfeev. The referee gave Akinfeev a yellow card and a penalty for Denmark. Kahlenberg, who played a role in both of Denmarks first two goals, scored to 3-1 and closed the game in the 61^st minute.

So far it had been a great game, but the events that made this game legendary, to me, happened later. After the third Danish goal, the Russians obviously lost their temper, and they started to commit a lot of rough tackles on the Danish players. In the 77^th minute, 11 minutes after he entered the game, the striker Aleksandr Bukharov was rewarded with a yellow card for a harsh tackle, which started a proper card spree. Five minutes later Bystrov received his first yellow card and less than a minute later he received his second and therefore a red card. Between Bystrov’s two cards Zhirkov received his second yellow and suddenly Russia was two men down. Unfortunately, it did not stop here, because five minutes later Sergei Chernogaev was sent off after two yellow cards and several harsh fouls, and one minute later both Aleksandr Samedov and Aleksandr Bukharov received red cards. The current Lokomotiv winger Samedov had spent the entire match on the bench, but received his red card because he threw a pair of gloves at the Danish striker “Duncan” when he ran past the Russian bench. Bukharov received his second yellow card after a horrible tackle from behind and soon after, the game was over. The Irish referee decided not to add any extra time to stop the blood bath on the field. Russia finished the game with only seven players on the pitch and Samedov thrown away from the bench.

Vladimir Bystrov after he was sent off.

After the game the controversies continued when Russia demanded a rematch because of the referees, who they felt stole two penalties from them. At the same time two Danish players complained about Russian players spitting at them. A week after the controversial match the head of the Russian Football Union, the current minister of sports Vitaly Mutko, apologized for the Russians behavior and they dropped all complaints against the referee.

With a total victory of 4-1 the Danish team went to the 2006 EURO where they ended in group B together with Italy, Netherlands and Ukraine. The build up to the tournament ended in a lot of drama when a young Nicklas Bendtner, who was new in the squad, called the older and more respected striker “Duncan” lazy and heavy, and stated that he should play before him because he “does more than just stand in the box and wait for the ball”. This was the first time the Danish football fans met Bendtner.

The Danish team, however, did not live up to the expectations, when they finished last in the group. They drew against Italy despite being in front 3-1 and later they drew with Netherlands as well. In the last game Denmark lost 2-1 to Ukraine, who later lost the final to Netherlands.

The starting lineups:

Denmark: Kevin Stuhr Ellegard (GK), Henrik Kildentoft, Leon Andreasen, Jonas Troest, Martin Pedersen, Rasmus Würtz, Martin Bergvold, Thomas Kahlenberg, Jonas Kamper, Morten “Duncan” Rasmussen, Kasper Lorentzen

Bench: Theis Rasmussen (GK), Jacob Poulsen, Martin Jensen, Sebastian Svärd, Jacob Sørensen, Simon Bræmer, Simon Busk Poulsen

Coach: Flemming Serritslev

Russia: Igor Akinfeev (GK), Sergei Chernogaev, Aleksandr Sheshukov, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, Aleksandr Pavlenko, Sergei Samodin, Igor Denisov, Rusland Nakhoushev, Kiril Nababkin, Yuri Zhirkov, Vladimir Bystrov

Bench: Vladimir Gabulov (GK), Aleksandr Bukharov, Aleksandr Samedov, Igor Lebedenko, Andrei Eschenko, Lenar Guilmulin, Ildar Akmetzyapov

Coach: Andrey Chernyshov

Highlights:

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Follow Toke Theilade on Twitter: @TokeTheilade

As we all know, the 2018 World Cup will be held in Russia. This is a massive victory for Russian football, and an incredible opportunity for the country to alter the generally negative image recently created by the Ukrainian conflict, a chance to show that the gap caused by the Cold War isolation had been left behind and that Russia is finally ready to become a fully-fledged member of modern society.

Is it ready though?

The country where the word “racism” is not offensive. The country where a person with a darker skin tone walking down the street is still an irregularity.

The  history of the subject is still quite fresh. The first football player  (first two players to be exact) with dark skin, Junior and Da Silva, appeared in  Russia in 1995 with Nizhny Novgorod. They were from Brazil. Both of them only stayed for one year and left unnoticed. The person who made a true impact and is believed to be the true sensation of Spartak Moscow at the time, is Luis Pereira Da Silva Robson. He was a true pioneer. When he joined the team in 1997, he played well, scored some crucial goals for Spartak in the Champions League (including against Arsenal), earned the supporters love and respect. He was even nicknamed “ Maximka” which is a truly affectionate pet name in Russian.  He broke the system. After him every club wanted a black player, it was a mauvais to not to have one. There were people from more than 20 different countries and nationalities throughout this short period of time.  Their playing qualities were less and less adequate, their laziness and eagerness to earn easy money, on the contrary, more and more obvious. And that’s where the tension started. Almost instantly they were booed at the stadiums, widely criticized in the press, sometimes even threatened and bullied. There were definitely good exceptions. For example, Lokomotiv Moscow players Jacob Lekheto and Francisco Lima. Both are still remembered (Lekheto sadly passed away recently) and loved. But the majority of cases were quite the opposite.

15 years later the situation is still the same if not worse. It’s a modern Russian football reality to be hated by your own team’s fans. People hiss players off, throw bananas at them, write offensive banners and sing racist songs. In Europe this kind of behavior is no longer tolerated. Russia does not seem to consider it as a major problem. Only recently CSKA Moscow was penalized by UEFA with matches without spectators for racism against Manchester City`s Yaya Toure. And the situation is very likely to repeat itself after this years` allegations.

The famous case of Roberto Carlos shows to what ridiculous extent the problem has gone. On March 2011, during an away game with Zenit Saint Petersburg, a banana was held near Carlos by one of the fans as the footballer was taking part in a flag-raising ceremony. In June, in a match away at FC Krylia Sovetov Samara, Roberto Carlos received a pass from the goalkeeper and was about to pass it when a banana was thrown onto the pitch, landing nearby. The 38-year-old Brazilian picked it up and threw it by the sidelines, walking off the field before the final whistle and raising two fingers at the stands, indicating this was the second such incident since March. Supporters involved in both cases were tracked down, fined and… released.

Zenith Saint Petersburg  generally has the worst reputation in terms of racism amongst Russian clubs. It took a great effort from the management to come to terms with the supporters about Hulk and some other players.

The situation in the country is worsened by the growing nationalist tendencies. The football authorities are not implementing measures strict enough to actually prevent people from offensive behavior. The recent case of Rostov coach Igor Gamula suspended for 5 games for saying “We`ve got enough Blacks in our team” is very demonstrative.

The World Cup is only 3 years away and the biggest concern is not the construction of stadiums for the event, but the state of readiness of the Russian society to accept a large number of people with a different skin tone and culture, sexual orientation and religious convictions.  I personally wish the Russian Football authorities pay more attention to creating a decent legislation system preventing racism and helping to create a free and tolerant environment for the big Football Fest.

“We must rediscover the distinction between hope and expectation” - Ivan Illich

In a time where the alleged lack of talented young Russian footballers and the low expectations regarding the country’s football future serve as topic for many and many inconclusive discussions, it is certainly interesting to take a closer look at the splendid work Yevgeni Bushmanov has been conducting at Spartak Moscow’s reserves team (FC Spartak-2 Moscow).

Bushmanov, as you might remember, was a fairly interesting footballer back in his days and he represented some big names of the Russian football, such as Spartak Moscow, CSKA Moscow, Torpedo Moscow and Krylia Sovetov. The Tyumen born ball playing defender had plenty of technique for someone who played as a centre back and quite often he was given the duty of acting as some sort of regista or deep lying playmaker in front of the defensive line. Although he was part of that memorable Spartak’s team that reached the European Cup semi-final back in 1991, he was far from being a key element in the team, mostly because he was only 19 years old at the time. After his two-season stint with Romantsev’s Spartak, Bushmanov signed for their city rivals of CSKA and it didn’t take long before he started to assume a vital importance in the Army Men. The young Siberian boy was part of that mighty CSKA team that shocked Camp Nou when they defeated the all-powerful Barcelona back in November of 1992 and he even netted in his team’s first goal after an excellent assist by Ilshat Faizulin.

Things have changed drastically since those glorious European days, when Russian teams had “loads” of talented young footballers from their academies in their ranks, especially because now the great majority of the country’s teams opt for a more, let’s say, capitalistic approach when preparing for the future.

Nevertheless, there are some who still know how to develop young talented footballers and, right from the depths of the third tier of Russian football, Yevgeni Bushmanov has been building and developing a group of players that, if it wasn’t for Spartak’s insistent and sometimes ludicrous policy of bringing in expensive and often poor quality players from overseas, would certainly find some space on the sleeping Russian giant’s first team.

Bushmanov’s Spartak are currently at the top of their division’s table with 42 points from 20 matches and, together with Saturn Ramenskoye and Zenit-2, they are by far the best teams of the Division Two, Zone West. Yevgeni Bushmanov was named Best Head Coach of October on a survey conducted by the PFL sports journalists and this prize was more than a deserved reward for the incredible job he has been spearheading at Spartak’s reserves team. The man who started CSKA heroic comeback at Camp Nou is now the mastermind behind a fairly talented lot of footballers where names such as Aleksandr Putsko, Anton Khodyrev, Anton Mitryushkin, Denis Davydov, Dmitri Kayumov, Vladimir Obukhov and Vyacheslav Krotov, just to name a few, are quickly becoming a serious case of success. For that purpose, he is relying on the help of Dmitri Kudryashov, an experienced Russian journeyman midfielder, who had everything in place to have a remarkable career about ten years ago, but somehow ended up by failing miserably.

The famous Tarasovka training grounds have witnessed the development of some of the best footballers ever to have crossed the Russian game and this new generation of talented young men might very well write their own chapter of the history of the country’s football if they are allowed to do so. In order to achieve that, they need to find their way into Spartak’s first team and put into practice all the wise teachings they have been receiving from Yevgeni Bushmanov and his coaching staff. The former International skilled defender has a tactical approach quite similar to the one implemented by both Romantsev and Beskov at Spartak’s roots a long time ago, as he keeps using one playmaker, or if you prefer a regista, in front of the defensive line, a player that has the task of building the team’s game from behind. A style based on short passing football with plenty of possession is also the trademark of Bushmanov, an approach that, in contrast to what Murat Yakin is currently implementing at Spartak’s main team, helped the Narodnaya komanda to enjoy some glorious moments during, for example, the early 1990s, when they presented what people today label as the tiki-taka style to Europe.

Yevgeni Bushmanov’s Spartak-2 is the living proof that there is still “hope” for Russian football, since contrary to what some (pundits, supporters and even Fabio Capello) are constantly claiming, the essence of the former Soviet short passing game is still there, somewhere alongside with loads of talented young footballers who just need a window of opportunity to show what they really can do.

Follow Joel Amorim on Twitter: @Vostok1981

When, in August 1994, Igor Dobrovolski signed for the Spanish football giants of Atlético Madrid, all eyes were on the talented Markivka-born midfielder as everyone thought this new adventure at La Liga would become an excellent opportunity for him to relaunch his bumpy career at one of the best football leagues in the World. Unfortunately all of those who followed that train of thought were completely wrong.

Alongside with Aleksey Mikhaylichenko, Yuri Savichev and Aleksandr Borodyuk, Igor Dobrovolski was the finest gem of the Anatoly Byshovets’ team that won the gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics, which took place in Seoul. The young Dobrovolski finished the tournament with six goals scored, only one behind the top goalscorer, the erratic Brazilian sharpshooter Romário, and pundits considered him one of the most impressive players of the competition. The USSR’s flamboyant number 10 scored from the penalty spot on the final match against Brazil and his goal was an extraordinary contribution for his team’s victory on such difficult clash by 2-1 on extra-time.

Back in those days, Dobrovolski was in Dynamo Moscow’s ranks and he was probably the standard bearer of a promising generation of Soviet footballers that had everything within their reach to catapult their National Team to a completely different dimension. Nevertheless, having left the Soviet Union in the pursuit of the “democracy dream” was not the best thing to have happened to Dobrovolski’s career. Because of the restrictions imposed by the government on the players’ transfers to overseas teams, the majority of the top class Soviet footballers only left the country after they turned 28. Nevertheless, some were “lucky” and both Dobrovolski and Mikhaylichenko were fortunate enough to leave their homeland at a young age. By 1990, the 23 year old midfielder joined the former Italian giants of Genoa but his experience at Serie A was far from being a dream. Due to the restrictions on the registration of foreign footballers, Dobrovolski wasn’t granted a place at Genoa’s first team and, a few months later, in January 1991, the former Dynamo’s midfielder joined the Spanish side of Castellon on loan until the end of that season. Before of his arrival, the blanquinegros were a complete mess and continued that way, something that complicated Dobrovolski’s adaption to both Spanish football and the team. On the following season, after having failed once again to claim his space at Genoa, Igor went on loan to the Swiss side of Servette, where it is fair to say that he had high quality moments.

In 1993, after another inglorious overseas adventure, this time with the powerful European champions of Marseille, a frustrated Dobrovolski returned to the team where, a few years before, he had proven to be one most impressive footballers of the Old Continent, Dynamo Moscow. Once again, Igor proved his worth at the Russian sleeping giants and, just one season later, he decided to have another go at Spanish football. In August 1994, Dobrovolski was again living the dream and joined Atlético Madrid as part of the new ambitious project that Jesús Gil wanted to implement in the team. The Ukraine-born midfielder failed once again to adapt to this new reality and, although he displayed some moments of pure genius, he failed to find the necessary peace of mind in a team that, despite having high quality players such Diego Simeone, Vizcaino, Caminero, Kiko, Kosecki and “El Tren” Valencia in their ranks, was also condemned to mediocrity.

Everything seemed to be going wrong for Dobrovolski at Vicente Calderon and even Atleti supporters, although they acknowledged his unique skills, would often shout from the stands: “DOBLE DE WHISKY!!! QUEREMOS DOBLE DE WHISKY” (lit. “double shot of whisky”, a play on words with the player’s name), and the former Soviet star, who wasn’t fully familiarized with the Spanish language, used to raise his arms in appreciation, something that transformed him in some sort of “town’s idiot” among the football enthusiasts across that Iberian country.

Tired of his Spanish nightmarish adventure, Dobrovolski changed venues again in 1996 and joined the German side Fortuna Düsseldorf, where, at least, he found once again the joy of playing football. Dobrovolski remained with Flingeraner until 1999, when he decided to hang his boots, thus putting an end to what could have been a remarkable career but was instead a path overflowing with setbacks and illusions transformed in nightmares.

Currently, fully recovered from the heart attack that almost took his life not so long ago, Dobrovolski is enjoying his first managerial experience at Russian territory, after taking the helm of the FNL side FC Sakhalin early this year.

Follow Joel Amorim on Twitter: @Vostok1981

“Fyodor fue un ídolo durante mi infancia. (…) Cuando estuve en el Spartak y jugué junto a Fyodor fue como una cosa de ciencia ficción. (…) Beskov siempre le ponía como un ejemplo para nosotros.” – Aleksandr Mostovoi

It is hard to find words to describe Fyodor Cherenkov’s talent and his unique personality. The former Spartak Moscow star was an example, both in football and as far as his personal life is concerned. A simple man, unattached to material things but blessed with such an incomparable talent, had he lived in a different country or in a different era, he might well have been seen as one of the best footballers in the whole World.

I was probably ten years old the first time I heard about Fyodor Cherenkov. I used to be an avid collector of football cards back then and one day I came across a Soviet Union player with a rock star moustache and an unconventional hairstyle that I wasn’t familiar with. I asked my father who was that funny looking guy and he told me that, from what he knew, Cherenkov was one of the best Soviet footballers ever. Almost twenty five years later, I now know for sure that he was very right.

Cherenkov was a vital element to Konstantin Beskov’s short passing style Spartak. The Red and White number 10 was truly a virtuoso and it was his outstanding passing skills, his proneness to deliver killer assists and his unimaginable dribbling movements that helped Beskov’s tiki-taka game style to prosper back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A natural born playmaker, but always aware of his commitment towards the team, Fedya helped Spartak win three Soviet Top Leagues, a Russian Premier League, a Russian Cup and was named Soviet footballer of the year on two different occasions (1983, 1989).

Regardless of his almost magical skills (Cherenkov always found a way to escape the opponent’s tight marking and produce something special out of that), Fyodor failed to impress the USSR National Team manager, Valeriy Lobanovskiy, back in those days. Spartak’s maestro didn’t seem to fit into a team filled with Lobanovskiy’s Dynamo Kiev players and because of that he only collected 34 caps for his country’s National Team. Cherenkov’s vision and killer passes had no place in the USSR’s vertical and at the same time clockworked game and the fact that he was part of Spartak’s team, Dynamo’s biggest rivals during the Soviet era, also greatly contributed to Fyodor’s reduced influence in his country’s National Team back in those days.

Regardless of such fact, Cherenkov didn’t go unnoticed to the hard core fans of European football back in the 1980s. Fyodor was part of that memorable Spartak Moscow team that completely trashed Arsenal at Highbury Park by 5-2 in 1982 and of the team that eliminated Anthony Barton’s Aston Villa from the UEFA Cup one year later, a win for which he contributed with two goals at Villa Park.

As many other Soviet players back in that time, Cherenkov did go on an adventure away from his motherland, but a brief stint at the age of 31 at the Paris outskirts club, Red Star FC didn’t, by any means, bring the acknowledgement that a player such as remarkable as him deserved.

After hanging his boots in 1993, Fyodor remained with Spartak Moscow, assuming several different coaching roles in the club’s structure and had the team’s youth academy named after him.

Cherenkov was a man ahead of his time, a superb football player, a fantastic human being and an example to others. Konstantin Beskov, the manager responsible for helping him to develop as a player, used to ask the team’s youngsters to take Fyodor as an example and, even on the moment of his death, Fyodor showed all that greatness as everyone bowed their heads out of respect for the most luminous star that Russian/Soviet football has ever produced.

Even international football pundits, who had rarely or probably never given Fyodor Cherenkov the credit he deserved while he was still displaying his magic back in his time, had the decency to honour him at the time of his death. Anyway, and quoting the iconic Brian Clough: “Don’t send me flowers when I’m dead. If you like me, send them while I’m alive.”

Follow Joel Amorim on Twitter: @Vostok1981

It is no exaggeration to say that almost every football fan dreams about working in the professional football industry. Personally, I began to consider it for the first time when I played FIFA Manager 06. I knew this game was unrealistic in terms of determining the level and development of the players, but I enjoyed improving the financial standing of my club by selling more tickets, and merchandise. This passion indirectly influenced my choice of education, as I decided to study marketing and management.

Over the years I have realized that it is impossible to get a job in Russian football if you don’t have any playing experience at a high level. To fight this trend I tried to network, and get as many connections as possible. I asked ex-Lokomotiv and Russia goalkeeper Ruslan Nigmatullin, who worked in Lokomotiv’s scouting department, if it was possible to get a job in scouting without playing experience, and the answer was, not surprisingly, a no. I talked with one of Russian football’s most famous marketing consultants Dmitry Markov, and I read Anton Kopyshov’s book about an incredible antagonism of Russian clubs against the increase of matchday and commercial revenue. Kopyshov is currently heading the marketing department at the Crimean club FC Sevastopol. Furthermore, I listened to the stories of Lev Munblit, a graduate of the European University with a master’s degree in sports management, which made him one of very few Russians with such an education. Despite his academic background, his attempts to get a job in football failed, and he now finds himself employeed as financial director at a women basketball club.

One day I read a blog by the former Lokomotiv sports director Alexey Zinin about football scouting, and here I found a link to his personal website. It turned out that he had his own scouting consulting agency, and there was a description of a workshop, which sounded like a type of training to be a scout. I applied, and later received an email with a test. It was the first time I had ever seen smart and educated questions about Russian football. There are several sites and writers who aim to analyze world football, but no Russians, with few exceptions, seem to care much about tactics, and what is really happening on the soccer field.

I later received a second test, and some of the questions looked simple enough, yet they turned out to be quite tricky. Every football fan could answer them, but the correctness depends on the level of football understanding as well as knowledge. I was, for example, asked to create a team of Russian Premier League players where I had to choose between four players in each position and four coaches. A team consisting just of the best player in each position would often struggle in real life, so to answer this question correctly you should consider how their individual qualities complemented each other, as well as how they fit the selected coach’s tactical preferences. I was also asked: “You are a new owner of Liverpool and can buy any player you want. Who would you buy: Sergio Ramos or Kompany? Müller or Götze? Messi or Ronaldo?” The question couldn’t be any simpler, but the answer says a lot about your football understanding.

I was eventually invited to participate in the workshop. To be honest I feared it was a scam at the beginning. Imagine, you and 29 other guys are somehow chosen from 500 applicants, with no criteria for the selection published, and oblidged to pay $150 for a week of lectures about… football. The participants from outside of Moscow even had to pay an extra $500 to stay at a hotel in the city. Why did they choose me? Maybe they invited just anyone who wanted to participate? Maybe the famous Mr. Zinin tried to scam money from goofs who dreamed so desperately about football jobs that they were ready to do anything to make the dream come true?

Luckily, Alexey Zinin dispelled any doubts at the first lecture. He invited the smartest people from the Russian football world to hold lectures, and answer our questions. Andrey Usachev, the head of the scouting department at Terek and former Lokomotiv defendender, told us about the special aspects in the process of detecting the level of a central defender. German Chistyakov, former FC Anzhi and FC PAOK general director, talked about creating the right atmosphere in the club, especially for stars like Eto’o and Boussoufa. Evgeniy Krechetov, one of the leading lawyers in Russian football, became very popular among the listeners, as he tried to tell us about every juridical aspect of transfer deals, including the particularities of the Russian law as well as the Russian attitude to the law.

As a fan of Lokomotiv, I was pleased with the invitation of the former Lokomotiv youth coach Vladimir Volchek. Volchek influenced the development of great talents like Miroslav Lobantsev, Pavel Mamaev, Igor Smolnikov, Vitaly Djakov and others. We privately talked a little about Pavel Deobald, who was impressive while playing for our youth squad, but later became an average player at Shinnik.

It was obviously important for Zinin to show football from different angles, which explains his invitation of the famous agent Alexey Safonov, one of Russia’s most influental agents. Just like Chistyakov, his lecture was centred on stories about Russian football rather than actually studying scouting. I can’t say it was less useful, however, since it helped to better understand what goes on in the head of a player, and what problems every football manager faces.

We were later invited to Spartak Football Academy, where we got the chance to talk with the current general director of Spartak, Sergey Rodionov, who was the president of the academy at the time. We also talked with the academy’s representatives, who explained how they scouted in youth football.

We also visited InStat Football, which was created by Alexander Ivanskiy as a system that may be called revolutionary for modern football. I can’t really describe my feelings when I first saw InStat Scout – a program, where you can find statistics of any player, and video of any action of almost any professional player. If you dream about watching all key passes Aleksey Tyurgashkin from Tekstilshchik Ivanovo made last season, this program is for you. The program has the same functionality as Football Manager, except everything is counted instead of generated. No wonder clubs like Chelsea, Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund use it.

Last but not least, we did some exercises, and the final one was actual scouting. Thanks to Lokomotiv Moscow sports director Kirill Kotov all students were able to watch a game between Lokomotiv and Arsenal Tula. Our task was to write scout reports on a Arsenal player. It was a fun experience: imagine 30 guys with exercise books sitting in the empty stands (nobody else wanted to pay 1000 rubles for watching Bozovic’s Lokomotiv in March), and writing down every action of every player from Tula.

The workshop only lasted a week, and just like the rest of the participants I felt it was too short. We were happy just to be there, though, as it was the first workshop in Eastern Europe dedicated to football scouting (but not the first thing in Eastern Europe I have participated in). I don’t know any other way to get this much inside information about the football system. But most of all I appreciate the fact that I was able to meet so many people who understand and love football. People with whom you can discuss which players from the Swedish Allsvenskan who would fit the Russian League, and what qualities you need to pay attention when you buy defenders from the Chilean Primera.

Even though we all had very different backgrounds, football united us. Some were just football fans like me, another a former U21 national team player from Latvia, an ex-Anzhi scout and even a football coach from Sao Paolo. All of them seemed to be smart enough to start working in Russian football right now. Unfortunately, most Russian scouting departments don’t do any scouting, and the majority of Russian clubs usually buy the players they are offered by agents, while others clubs buy just to steal budget money. Very few have sporting department work with scouts who actually search for players.

This seemed to be the main reason for why Alexey Zinin created the workshop – he was tired of working with people who are not interested in developing their teams. Well, the clubs don’t need scouts right now. But the economic situation in Russia is worsening, and the clubs will have less money to spend, so they’ll have to spend their limited funds more wisely to stay competitive. Some clubs already suffer from spending too much as they are not in line with the financial fair play rules.

Some of my fellow students have already found jobs in Russian football thanks to the workshop. I keep looking. Dreams come true.

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Follow Ilya on Twitter: @Lokosokol

Every year the organization behind the Russian Premier League organizes a beauty pageant for female fans of the sixteen clubs in the league. Fans of the different clubs select between several beautiful female supporters, and in the end the sixteen winners compete for the title as ‘Miss RFPL’.

The host of this season’s pageant was Victoria Lopyvera, a former Miss Russia winner as well as FC Krasnodar striker Fedor Smolov’s ex-wife. During the pageant there are different prizes, one of these the title as Miss Charm, a title CSKA Moscow’s representative Olga Kuzkova won.

Notice the tattoos on the man’s leg.

Even though the 21 year old CSKA fan impressed at the pageant with her stunning appearance, her profile at the popular Russian social media VKontakte exposed a more unattractive side of this year’s Miss Charm.

On Kuzkova’s VK page she has shared pictures of herself wearing a t-shirt with Nazi symbols on it, while in another picture she is seen heiling in front of a the numbers 14/88 painted on a wall. Another picture reveals that these numbers are also tattooed on Kuzkova’s husband’s legs. The number 14 refers to the 14 words in the slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children” coined by David Lane, an American white nationalist leader and founder of a white supremacist terror organization in USA named The Order. The number 88 is used as an abbreviation for the Nazi salute Heil Hitler, with H being the eight letter in the alphabet and 88 thus translating into HH or Heil Hitler.

Screendump from Kuzkova’s VK profile. The text on picture translates into: “Jews and Caucasians burn great in the crematoria furnaces!”

This was unfortunately not the first time the Miss RFPL beauty pageant was hit by scandals involving Russia’s far right. In 2012 Anna Kulikova won the Miss Spartak title, a contest hosted by Spartak Moscow and the ultra-group Fratria. Kulikova was, after receiving her prize, photographed, wearing a White Power T-shirt, with former Russian national team player and Spartak assistant Andrei Tikhonov. Among the competition’s partners was the big sports site Championat.com, but also the far-right clothing store Rusultras, according to FARE Network and Sova Center’s report about discrimination in Russian football from February, 2015.

Screendump from Olga Kuzkova’s VK profile.

This scandal happens only two days after FC Ufa’s Ghanian midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong was racially abused during the opening match of the Russian Premier League between Spartak and Ufa in Moscow. After 29 minutes and 30 seconds, monkey chants were yelled at Frimpong, and when he reacted and showed the fans the middle finger he was shown a red card. We are yet to find out how Spartak and Frimpong’s punishments, but judged on the two similar cases from last season Frimpong will receive at least a two match ban.

Kuzkova’s victory made the anti-racist group CSKA Fans Against Racism use their social media channels to call for her to be stripped of her title: “We make a call to all organizers of this contest from Russian Premier League to deprive her of the title immediately, if they are sincere in their words about “our legendary veterans and millions of victims of the Second World War”.” It is however still unknown whether or not Kuzkova’s social media behavior will have any consequences.

Follow  Toke on Twitter: @TokeTheilade

I am a big fan of the Grassroots Project, where the photographer Sergey Novikov travels across Russia to take pictures of the most beautiful stadiums and most infamous amateur football teams. One does however not necessarily have to travel long distances to find interesting football venues. Not with a capital like Moscow, a city that has an incredible diversity regarding the beautiful game. The city has lot of both professional and amateur clubs with their own stadiums spread out around the huge city. One of these clubs is Strogino.

The Strogino district was once known as a “Football center in the Moscow suburbs”. Strogino’s first team plays in the PFL (third tier in the Russian football league system) while the club also consists of the youth team Strogino-M, a youth sports school and a beach soccer team. Among the Muscovite clubs only giants like Lokomotiv or Dinamo can show a similar setup.

Strogino was founded in 2010, and I quickly took interest in the new club and started attending their home games. Back then they played in the Amateur Football Leagues. Today the club is a part of the Russian professional leagues’ system, and Strogino is probably strong enough to compete in the FNL, as they finished 3rd last season. To join the FNL will however demand a much bigger budget because of the long and expensive away trips. This is also why the club isn’t considering promotion at the moment. Strogino is sponsored by the Department of Physical Training and Sports of Moscow (Moskomsport), which also funds FC Chertanovo, the senior team of the famous Chertanovo academy.

Strogino play its homegames at the Yantar Stadium, located on the banks of the Moscow River, and it has, without a doubt, the prettiest surroundings of the many big and small stadiums in Moscow, as the river is observable from the stands.

When I visited Strogino this time, they were playing against FC Domodedovo in the Russian cup. FC Domodedovo was founded in 2013 by the twins Dmitry and Kirill Kombarov, who both play for Spartak Moscow. The club is currently funded by the town authorities and a construction firm, and they finished 10th in its first season in the PFL. Just like Strogino, Domodevo have no intention of gainining promotion in the near future.

The away fans at Yantar Stadium are located on the East side, and from here they can see a huge hill with sky-high buildings. The good view of both the pitch and the surroundings make some locals prefer to combine beach recreation with football and sit just behind the away stands.

With both clubs located around Moscow this was a local derby, which helped on the attendance. So did the fact that it was a Cup game, which combined with the late kick-off time and pleasant weather attracted a large number of spectators.

With the strong turn-out it was also clear that the fans who attended the match had very different backgrounds. I talked with a so-called “kuzmich”, an old-school fan, who had attended every single match of FC Strogino. He had supported Torpedo Moscow since the 1960s, but now his love was for Strogino as they were based near his home. This guy also visited the famous USSR – Brazil friendly in 1965, when Pele scored twice against the Soviet side.

Although Torpedo played its cup fixture at the same time in Podolsk (Moscow region), and won 1-0, he decided to watch his local team.

Another type of Strogino fan is younger and less interested in the football. Usually these kind of fans sits in groups, where one fan, who actually likes football, explains the rules of the game or the salary of 2nd tier clubs to the rest of the group. Most of these came to chat more than to watch football, and many were more interested in their phones than in the match.

I also saw noticed several people standing alone around the ground. They could be scouts, club’s workers, locals or anybody else, as it was hard to understand. The guest stand was empty though, as the the number of Domodedovo’s fans coincided full with the price of the ticket: 0. Or perhaps they were simply undercover as Strogino fans to get a better view and get away from the guest stand, which is hidden behind a big green net.

As a service from the club, the game was broadcasted on the club’s official website via YouTube, and from time to time the commentator gave updates from the Euro U-19, where Russia played semifinal against Greece. In fact, today many low league clubs broadcast their games online.

As it was the first round of the Cup, the match started with the national anthem and a flag-raising ceremony. Unfortunately, something went wrong and the flag never reached the top of the pole.

The match itself wasn’t very entertaining, which is quite unusual for the games of this level. It ended 0:0, with neither of the sides deserving the win. Since it was a cup game penalties had to be used to decide which team would advance to the next round.

Both teams scored five of the first six penalties, before Domodedovo’s keeper became the hero when he saved the last shot. After the match the Strogino fans were just as angry as the players, who even fought a little with their rivals after the shootout, but they still applauded and thanked the team for the game. As I left the stadium I realized how much I enjoy watching football, even when the level of the players is low and I have no feelings involved regarding the two teams. Football should really be watched at the stadium.

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Follow Ilya on Twitter: @lokosokol

The fans attending football matches in Russia can be split in two large groups, at least with a rough generalization. One contains the so-called active supporters who go to the matches to support their team through all 90 minutes, and the other one is for the ordinary spectators who have a more relaxed view on the beautiful game. In this edition of ‘View from the Stands’ we look at the big differences of opinion on how one should behave inside a stadium.

Both groups have been victims of widespread stereotypes. Some say that while the ordinary fans simply come to the stadiums looking for entertainment, active fans go to the stands to let go to their emotions, to scream and swear and are more interested in fighting and insulting their opponents than in football itself. The former don’t understand what the more dedicated fans fight for and believe in, while the latter consider sitting calmly at a football game senseless. ‘Football is about emotions and pride, so why go to a game if one dares not show what he feels?’ – those used to singing songs, jumping and clapping their hands all the match long ask.

This is where the confrontation between the two groups begin. However, while the ordinary spectators don’t cause many troubles to their club

In Russian ordinary supporters are often referred to as ‘kuzmichi’ – a term which means a kind of country bumpkin, simple people.

and never threaten to break up a game by their actions, the ultras often create a lot of nuisances to their clubs. Once they start chanting something insulting, light flares or smoke bombs, they become subjected to discipline and the community starts discussing how these people should be dealt with.

Last season saw CSKA forced to play all their home-fixtures in the Champions League behind closed doors as a punishment for their fans’ actions, and Zenit were lucky to avoid big troubles after their fans had nearly broken up the group-stage game against APOEL with a pyro-show several years ago.

This season some families with young children were seen leaving Petrovsky Stadium with about 15 minutes left of the game between Zenit and Krylya Sovetov in August when the home fans started abusing the unpopular head coach Andre Villas-Boas. ‘Why do my son and I have to listen to all these ribaldries every time we decide to go to a football match?’ a parent asked after the game, and this is something many regular supporters ask. ‘Then f*cking stay at home’ – the answer will be from the active fans, a notorious quote which became incredibly popular among football supporters in Russia after Roman Shirokov famously put it, unaware of being recorded, when he addressed a group of Zenit fans who conducted themselves badly at the stadium. Still, there are those who suggest banning active fans from attending football grounds completely and consider them dangerous for society. These people do however often forget that one of the things that makes football special is the atmosphere created at the stadium by the most dedicated fans.

Roman Shirokov talking to Zenit’s fans during a Champions League game against APOEL a couple of years ago. Shirokov famously named the fans who had just lighted a large amount of flares ‘morons’. This is a legendary episode from Russian football culture.

The dedicated fans, in their turn, laugh at the casual and ordinary spectators for wearing foolish attributes from the official fan shops or using special seats with a club’s logo on them to avoid freezing at a stadium. According to the fans, it is unacceptable to put the emblem of the club under one’s bottom. The active fans consider themselves as the principal part among all the supporters, because they are the ones who create the atmosphere at the stadium that many people love to be a part of, even though they are sitting in safe distance on a comfortable seat with a club logo. Because of this, many active fans consider themselves the true guardians of the classic and original football spirit, opposed by those who support the modern football and its many flaws.

Casual spectators would argue that these ‘guardians’ are nothing but a bunch of rowdies, and that football would do just fine without them. A suitable example here would be the now silent, but controlled, English stands, where crowd trouble are few and far apart.

The fans continue to try and convince the ordinary spectators that they have nothing to fear and can go to the stadiums freely as the ultra-boys never do any harm to those who don’t want to participate in fans’ disputes. They state that all those complaints about abusive chants, flares etc. are just a mere whining because, sitting for example at some central stand which is intended for the ordinary supporters, one will certainly notice that those around him swear no less than the ‘hardcore’ fans. Unfortunately, many people are difficult to come to understand these issues and the necessity of the fans, and therefore they promote low attendances at the stadiums, preferring to watch football at home.

It was quite the scandal when Dinamo TV anchor Dmitry Derunets attacked a Spartak pitch invader during the derby match between Dinamo and Spartak at Arena Khimki two weeks ago. In this spirit, I have found some of the most memorable pitch invasions in the history of Russian footballl.

Of course we start with the events at Arena Khimki two weeks ago:

One of the most epic invasions was again conducted by a Spartak fan. Not only did he onto the field, but he even scored a penalty and used controversial gestures to celebrate this goal.

This Spartak fan wasn’t as successful. First, he was tackled by the Spartak player Radoslav Kovac. Secondly, Kovac was sent off for that incident, so the fan could definitely be blamed for that. Fortunately for him, Spartak later managed to equalize.

We have now seen a few Spartak supporters invade the pitch, and so it is time to look at some of the other clubs. This CSKA supporter decided to hit first and participate in one of the most awful brawls in the history of Russian football. A brawl that was by the way stsarted by a young Yuri Zhirkov.

Let’s go back to Spartak. Actually, “go back” is what this fan failed to do, which caused another massive fight.

This Lokomotiv fan, on the other hand gave a perfect example of the successful return to the stands after a pitch invasion. Although perhaps, it was just the shooting a of the new Indiana Jones movie.

To end this look through some of the darker chapters, although far from the darkest, in the history book of Russian football, we have two pitch invasions by representatives of the animal kingdom. First a cat from Saint Petersburg, who apparantly wasn’t amused by Zenit’s cup trashing of local rivals FC Tosno.

Last but not least, we have the only Russian pitch invader to ever receive a yellow card. Only a few minutes remained of the derby between CSKA and Spartak at Luzhniki when a dog took the field. Despite hard work from CSKA’s Brazilian striker Vagner Love, the dog decided to stick around for a while.

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Follow Ilya on Twitter: @Lokosokol

The Champions League match between the Belgian champions from Gent and their Russian counterparts Zenit had a dramatic prelude, when the mayor of Gent banned all Zenit fans from the match in fear of hooliganism. This decision was later revoked, and in the end, the fans from St. Petersburg were allowed to both enter Gent as well as watch the game. A victory would have made Zenit the first Russian side to win all six of their Champions League games since Spartak in the 1995/1996 season, so despite already having qualified for the Round of 16 in the spring, they had something to play for.

Lukas Müller, a Denmark based Zenit fan, travelled to Belgium to watch the game, and at Russian Football News, we are happy to give you his report from the trip.

I had planned this trip for a while. I wanted to see Zenit live again. The last time I saw them live was in the summer of 2013, when they played agaist Nordsjaelland in Denmark (where I live). I felt it was time to see them again. It is of course not easy for me just to travel around to watch Zenit since I live in Denmark, but this was my last chance this year, so I had to take it.

I travelled with a mate from Copenhagen on the morning of December 9. Unfortunately, the plane was delayed for two hours, so our time in Belgium was shortened a bit. Eventually we arrived at Charleroi airport around 13:00 CET, from where we took a train to Gent.

We wandered around Gent throughout the day. A truly beautiful city! They were having some sort of Christmas carnival whilst we were there, which created a cozy and welcoming atmosphere throughout the city. A great warm up for the match. After some sightseeing around Gent, we went back to our hotel to relax before heading off towards the Ghelamco Arena, where the match was played.

Off to the match! We took a bus from the train station to the stadium, and close to the stadium, the police stopped the bus (they stopped all traffic) and asked all Zenit fans to follow them. We were then escorted to the away section, probably to avoid any sort of trouble. We arrived at the away section, and went through the entrance. Three ticket checks and four security checks on the way from the entrance to the stands. They were definitely not low on security, which I had not either expected with all the buildup for this match with Gents mayor.

The stadium, which could host around 20,000 spectators, was both modern and beautiful, but more importantly, it was packed. With Gent being able to secure a spot in the playoff, it was one of the club’s most important games ever, which of course made it very sought after. Therefore, the buildup towards kickoff was immense. However us Zenit fans were calmer, since we really only had a pointless “18-point trophy” to play for, and that really reflected on the game. Despite showing a few signs of their quality, Zenit played a poor match in which both Axel Witsel and Hulk were rested. Gent were clearly more ready for the job, and that they actually had something to play for became painfully obvious. They put themselves ahead after 18 minutes from a well-placed header. The match was quite calm from there on, up until half time. After half time Zenit got a better grip on the match, but still without being great. Gent became nervous because they had something at stake, and Zenit capitalized on that after 65 minutes. Dzyuba scored after a messed up clearing from the Gent defenders, and Zenit were back in the game, and back in the race for 6/6. Unfortunately, Gent pushed on, and their best player, Milicevic, scored 12 minutes before the final whistle. Overall it looked like Zenit were mentally already on holiday, and at least it was not too painful to see the dark horses in our group go through to the round of 16 together with us.

Despite the result, I loved my trip to Gent, as in the end it did not matter so much, since we were already through as group winners. What I enjoyed the most was seeing Zenit again. I have actually already booked flights for Lisbon in February to see us conquer the Champions League after Christmas!

Follow Lukas on Twitter: @LukasZenitHD

It was hoped that this match would be able to unite two sets of people among the current diplomatic crisis between Russia and Turkey. However, unfortunately several inflammatory incidents took place around the game. Firstly stones were thrown at a bus of Lokomotiv Moscow fans and several Twitter accounts associated with Russian football were abused and threatened with violence.

The now infamous vest.

The main incident to capture the headlines though has been a vest worn by Lokomotiv midfielder Dmitry Tarasov. On the vest was an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the phrase ‘The Most Polite President’, souvenirs with this phrase are on sale in shops throughout Russia but this particular item has caused a storm.

The defensive midfielder defended his actions:

“It’s my president. I respect him and decided to show that I’m always with him and prepared to give my support.”

“What was written on that shirt was everything that I wanted to say.”

Several Fenerbahçe players reacted to this provocative action and had to be restrained and calmed down. Many Lokomotiv fans and the Russian Football Union executive committee have strongly criticised Tarasov’s actions which should help dampen the situation. Lokomotiv have furthermore issued a statement on their official website saying that Tarasov will be punished for his actions, and that he has hurt both himself and the club.

Political statements are not allowed by UEFA at its competitions meaning Tarasov has landed himself and his club in hot water. Despite the former Tom Tomsk player stating he acted alone, Lokomotiv Moscow could face a large fine or even suspension from competition. Tarasov himself will more than likely be handed a fine (€100,000 is the maximum fine that UEFA hands out to individuals) and a suspension which could be around eight to ten matches, UEFA will announce their verdict in two weeks time.

Tarasov has handled himself terribly and, whilst people may be sympathetic towards Russia in this crisis, there is no place for politics in football. He is likely to be suspended for the return leg next Thursday and, with the score currently 2-0 in Fenerbahçe’s favour, Lokomotiv find themselves in a desperate situation which Tarasov cannot help them with thanks to his own thoughtlessness.

FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique with his Catalan flag at the end of the Champions League final.

It is worth noting that similar incidents of political references in football have taken place, including the waving of a flag with an image of former Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk by Fenerbahçe ‘s goalkeeper Volkan Demirel and the planting of a Catalan flag on the pitch by Gerard Pique, no ban was subsequently imposed on Pique, although Barcelona was fined afterwards. It would be interesting to see what UEFA’s stance and punishment would be if a political statement was supposedly less controversial.

Overall Tarasov is clearly the guilty party, his actions are impossible to defend and have possibly cost his team by doing something completely avoidable. However, UEFA must make sure the punishment handed to Lokomotiv and Tarasov is consistent with their previous actions against politics in football.

Follow Thomas on Twitter: @Thomas_Giles_UK

Tuesday, Maria Sharapova admitted to failing a doping test.

Monday, one of the most famous tennis players in the world, Maria Sharapova, announced that she failed a doping test during the Australian Open tournament earlier this year. She is now facing a four-year ban for taking the drug meldonium, which was included on the list of prohibited drugs on January 1, 2016. Sharapova is the latest athlete from the former Soviet Union to be caught for using the drug.

Meldonium is known to be popular in the post-Soviet space, which the list of names caught using the now prohibited drug also proves: biathletes Olga Abramova and Artem Tyshchenko from Ukraine, road bicycle racer Eduard Varganov from Russia and Russian icedancer Ekaterina Bobrava as well as six Georgian wrestlers.

Evgeny Slyusarenko, who wrote about meldonium on Championat.com in October last year, backs up that claim. According to Slyusarenko the drugs are produced in Latvia from where they are distributed to the rest of the former Soviet Union. In October, Slyusarenko predicted massive bans of Russian sportsmen, whom he named the main target of the decision to include eldonium on the list: “Meldonium is a placebo at best,” Slyusarenko wrote,” At worst it is a vitamin. WADA included it in the S4 category (hormone and metabolic modulators). It means that it is possible to ban for 4 years for its usage. Given the prevalence of the drug in Russia, there will probably be absurd cases, when a promising career will be interrupted because of the vitamins.”

The words about its popularity were confirmed by a football player. “Almost every doctor from the former Soviet Union included mildronate [Another name for meldonium] in the complex of drugs used during training camps and competitions,” Evgeniy Kirisov, who currently plays for Luch-Energiya in the FNL, told Russian Football News.

So, can we expect any football players to be involved in cases like Sharapova’s?

Yegor Titov received a one year suspension in the beginning of 2004.

Doping scandals are a rare thing in football, which would make it a big scandal if it happened, which it has done in the past. On November 15, 2003, Spartak legend Yegor Titov took a doping test after the Euro 2004 qualification play-off game between Russia and Wales. His blood sample was positive for bromantane, so Titov was banned from football for one year. In 2005, Russian journalist Igor Rabiner published an investigation into the case, where he revealed that all Spartak Moscow players were given Bromantane in 2003, although in the end it didn’t help much as the Red-Whites finished tenth in the league, the worst result for Spartak in Russian history. The players, who later decided to get the truth out, complained of feeling unwell while taking the prohibited pills.

The case only became public because Titov was a national team player, which sparked a lot of interest. So, how many doctors of Russian football teams gave their footballers doping? How many of them gave meldonium, missing the moment when it was prohibited, as Sharapova did? It is obvious that even the most inattentive man will now notice the hype. But how long does it take to get it out of the system?

“Up to 3 months. It depends on the course,” Eduard Bezuglov, a doctor of the Russia national football team, told Russian Football News. It means that even if athletes stop using meldonium now, it could be in their blood until summer. Footballers participating in international competitions are in the firing line.

Zenit is the only Russian club still in Europe, but it is very unlikely that such a club would continue to use a medicine after a warning made by WADA last year. Even Spartak doesn’t make such mistakes. According to Spartak’s doctor Mikhail Vartapetov, they had been monitoring WADA news and found out about the prohibition of meldonium last autumn.

What about the national team of Russia, which is going to participate in Euro 2016 this June? The latest squad consisted of players from 10 different teams. Can we be sure that none of them were involved in some illegal improvement of performance like Titov was?

“There will be no problems with that in the national team. All players were warned in advance,” Bezuglov told Russian Football News. He also mentioned that none of the Russian football players he has worked with have used it because of its “futility”.

There are however those of a different opinion about the effects of the drug. Asked about meldonium, Kim Højgaard Ravn from Anti Doping Denmark told TV3 Sport that: “The medicine is developed for sick people, but using it on a healthy person, which some athletes seem to be doing, will increase stamina. You can simply work for a longer time. Furthermore, it can give a quicker recovery, which can be very relevant for many top athletes.” Increased stamina and recovery would obviously help football players a lot, especially those competing in many different competitions.

It looks like many Russian athletes still use it. Yesterday, there were reports of positive drug tests for meldonium of Russian national volleyball team player Aleksandr Markin, five-time world champion speed-skater Pavel Kulizhnikov and Olympic champion in short track speed skating Semyon Elistratov.

If a volleyball player can get caught, all other team sports, including football, will be on the line.

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Follow Ilya on Twitter: @Lokosokol

Photo by Danny Armstrong.

It’s been just over two months since I moved back to Russia. In the heart of winter, there are a myriad things to suffer in its capital city, Moscow. Biting cold temperatures and bureaucracy mean that a simple Englishman’s pride can take many a knock in the taxing post-holiday months. But each nagging obstacle in the motherland is made a little easier to withstand with the knowledge that the first days of spring not only bring a mildness to Moscow’s heavy air, but also the end of the winter break and the return of the Russian Premier League.

This means a chance to watch Zenit St. Petersburg – for me the first time since leaving the country 18 months ago – who restarted their season away at FC Krasnodar. Having surrendered my passport to the notorious Russian visa process, the flight tickets I had bought were now useless, meaning the near 1,400 km journey south to the tepid resort town of Krasnodar began in a cramped minivan with nothing other than Russian anecdotes and road snacks for company. Before setting off, the driver, Vasily, ensured me it would take us around 15 and a half hours to get to our destination. Setting off from the drearily unimaginative rendezvous of the McDonald’s near Domodedovskaya station at 10.30pm on a Friday, we’d make it overnight.

Vasily’s stops for fuel, cigarettes and even sleep dictated that we would arrive for 5 o’clock in the afternoon, nineteen hours after leaving Moscow. Our route took us through the satellite towns of Russia’s extreme south-west, each more barren and remote than the last. But aside from the inane desperation these screamingly desolate settlements seem to have in abundance, there is something definitively surreal and alluring about being in Russia’s backlands: you are in that vast mass of earth miles from any recognisable city where you imagine nobody lives. And you’d be right. Russia’s population of 143 million sparsely fills the world’s largest nation, meaning rural communities offer little company other than trees and broken tractors scattered across its bleak landscape.

The van was filled with hefty, sweat-stained men making their way from Moscow to Krasnodar. Some were returning home for the weekend from work, some were travelling to see family, each was interested to find out where I was from (Bulgaria being the first guess) and all were perplexed when the answer came as: ‘Manchester, England’. Young Mancunian men simply don’t travel to watch a Russian Premier League side play away by way of an unofficial taxi in March, but when I explained I was a journalist writing about the match, their furrowed brows relaxed and conversation from thereon was centred mainly on football.

Photo by Danny Armstrong.

By the time Saturday midday came around, Vasily and his co-pilot Arkady were providing the boisterous conversation in which we were all invited to enter, both being acutely aware of the need to keep each other from boredom and – in Vasily’s case – the dangerously lingering urge to sleep on the mammoth journey. One method quickly became to assure me I would make it to the match’s 7.30pm kick off time.

“You’ll manage it,” Arkady lurched around the front passenger seat and wryly smiled at me. “The rain might delay the kick off,” he said pointing at the fresh flecks of water on the window. Although facetious, this was meant as reassurance, but any confidence was polarised entirely by my distrust of Vasily to drive more than 200 yards without stopping for a cigarette break.

Nevertheless, the evening sun was still just enough to pierce through the front window as we reached Krasnodar. The lack of snow and presence of tall green trees was a welcome and refreshing change from Moscow’s harsh daily grind. Then the phone rang. My friend Andrei in the town centre had “a few guys from St. Petersburg” come into his bar with a spare ticket for the away section and wanted to know if I would pay the 500 rubles for it. I hastily advised him to take it.

After Vasily dropped me off on the outskirts of the town, getting to the bar to pick the ticket up required a further ride on one from the many marshrutki outside the main shopping centre, then a lift in a severely Soviet-era car, all arranged with the help of two men from the same van who had done well to play the Russian trait of seeming almost intimidatingly apathetic only to move hell or high water to do you a favour – this time it was to make sure I got to my destination safe and on time.

Photo by Danny Armstrong.

I met Andrei in the Grey Bear Pub, a pristine sports bar tucked behind the main street stores on Krasnodar’s strip. He gave me my ticket and assured me if we got the tram now it would take us 15 minutes to get to Stadion Kuban. Entering its fifty fifth year of operation this year, the stadium plays host to both FC Krasnodar and neighbours Kuban. FC Krasnodar will however soon move out of their rivals stadium, as their brand new Stadion Krasnodar is expected to be ready later this year. It was intended to be a World Cup stadium, before Krasnodar was omitted from the list of host cities.

For this week 19 Russian Premier League match, the 16,650 crowd was just a handful over half the current ground’s 31,654 capacity. As I made my way through the turnstiles I turned into the ground and immediately saw the huddle of travelling Zenit fans occupying the away end behind Yuri Lodygin’s goal. The sight of their striking laser-blue and white flags rippling in the wind as the 1,000 strong well-organised rabble rhythmically bounced in unison ruffled the hair of the little football-mad boy inside me. Seeing those supporters outnumbered but thoroughly in voice was different to being surrounded by them on the Petrovskiy terraces – it was, ironically, more foreign.

A young girl hanging on the fence at the away sector. Photo by Danny Armstrong.

The atmosphere was absorbing throughout a lukewarm first half in which neither side seriously threatened.  Red flares and smoke bombs intermittently diluted the group’s immaculate colours. Petersburg banners adorned the railings in front, on which a young blonde girl no older than four and clad in Zenit scarf, climbed up and danced enthusiastically while her dad smiled and watched on before catching her. Those more daring did the same but rocked it furiously, prompting security to assemble in front of it. Their wagging fingers and stern stares did nothing to quell the ruckus. On the pitch Yuri Zhirkov, making his league debut at left back, was probably Zenit’s best player in the opening stanza.

In the second half the game picked up as the crowd quietened. Hulk went close on 53 minutes for the visitors, his shot was deflected wide of Stanislav Kritsyuk’s post after a scorching run through the middle. Axel Witsel fluffed a chance at the back post from the resulting corner. On the hour mark an animated Hulk afforded a conversation with the Zenit end after falling foul of perceived harsh refereeing that cut short another bursting run – his frustrations neatly summarised the general mood of the Petersburg faithful.

The second half also saw another debutant in Aleksandr Kokorin. The young man on whose shoulders most believe the future of Russian football rests came on for Yusupov on the 70th minute. Dzyuba’s removal seven minutes later meant Sasha was playing as Zenit’s lone striker heading an attacking cluster of three players. Andre Villas Boas’ favoured 4-2-3-1 formation has been criticised lately with opposing teams inviting pressure before catching them on the counter attack and Kokorin’s prodigious talent seemed lost when his side’s attacks broke down. His presence did nothing to change Zenit’s attacking approach and his worth in the team will only be told by time.

The final chance of the match fell again to Hulk  on 90 minutes. After being brought down on the left hand side of the area, the number 10’s much-anticipated free kick this time found a way past the wall, but not past the ever-ready Kritsyuk, whose save finally punctuated the match, 0-0 the final result.

RFN’s Danny Armstrong in Krasnodar. Photo by Danny Armstrong

Following the final whistle the Zenit players came as close to the away end as Stadion Kuban’s running track permits, much to the delight of their adoring supporters – a tribute to the hardcore who had made a journey a lot farther than mine.

It was fifteen minutes after the game’s end until the Zenit fans were let out into the cool Krasnodar night, some pouring onto coaches with ‘St. Petersburg’ signs on the front and of infinitely more comfort than my carriage down. I hopped on the tram back to the bar to meet Andrei who had promised that he would show me ‘real Krasnodar’, a vibrant, hip town that closes its main road to traffic so street artists can provide entertainment to families wanting to sample the city’s sublime  architecture.

Whatever Krasnodar had to offer, I had had my fill of fun. Being part of that core of support had not only been a football fan milestone, but had relit the spark for following Russian football in its entirety and to support the team onwards – or, as the Russians say, ‘Vperiyod!’

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Follow Danny on Twitter: @DannyWArmstrong

This is the second and last part of Vincent Tanguy’s mini series about Spartak founder and Soviet football legend Nikolai Starostin. You can read part one here.

One man was going to send the life of Nikolai Starostin, his brothers and all his relatives deep into the dark: Lavrenti Beria. A key figure of Soviet power from 1938 to 1953, this man born in Georgia remains sadly famous for his cruelty.

Lavrenti Beria, head of the NKVD and Dinamo Moscow. Source: bbc.com

In 1938, Stalin appointed him head of the NKVD, the secret Police of the Soviet Union, and the owner of the Dinamo Sports Society. From his childhood Beria had supported his local side Dinamo Tbilisi, but after moving to the capital he adopted Dinamo Moscow as his new club – a club he was in full control over.

In front of him, Spartak turned out to be  the most dangerous enemy on the field, and Nikolai Starostin was one of the major reasons why.

Dinamo won two USSR Championships in 1936 and 1937, but in the year of his arrival in 1938, Beria saw Spartak win the double. His aversion for Spartak is in relationship to Nikolai Starostin. The latter tells the story :

“It was 50 years ago, but I remember very well our first meeting. I went to him. We talked only about sport. Who plays, what is new in the team. Then, he said:

– Come on, Nikolai, play. You explained everything. We can look without you, thanks for the information.

This time, he introduced me to his suite:

– It is the same Starostin, who one day escaped in front of me to Tiflis.

Satisfied with the effect, me and his entourage didn’t know how to react.

Beria, as he had read my thoughts, looked at me in the void, said:

– You see, Nikolai, as life is strange. You are still wearing sport kit, and I am no longer fit for sporting achievements.

I felt uncomfortable in front of this cold look… “

Nikolai Starostin met Beria on a football field in the 20’s. The glorious ascension of Starostin in football touched the pride of Beria. He wanted revenge, and Dinamo should be used as a tool.

Unfortunately, the 1939 Championship ended like the previous one, seeing Dinamo finish behind Spartak. The Cup of the USSR was the last trophy in order to avoid seeing Spartak once again achieve the double. And the opportunity came.

In semi-finals on September 9th 1939, Spartak played against Dinamo Tbilisi. Spartak won the match 1-0, but at the end of the match, Dinamo Tbilisi protested, explaining that the shot that led to the goal didn’t cross the goal line. The protests were rejected and Spartak went on to the final, where they won 3-1 against Stalinets Leningrad on September 12th, 1939.

Nevertheless, a few days after the final, the authorities canceled the result of the semi final against Dinamo Tbilisi. Despite the misunderstanding and the protests of Nikolai Starostin in front of the highest authorities, the semi-final had to be replayed on September 30, 1939, 18 days after winning the final. The protestations of Dinamo Tbilisi had their effect at the highest level, and proved the power of Beria and the powerful Dinamo society. Despite having several injuries after a tough season, Spartak won 3-2. The authorities decided that it was not necessary to replay the final.

More than a club; a survival card

The start of World War II got the Soviet Top League cancelled in the middle of the 1941 season, but that didn’t mean the Starostins were safe from Beria.

On March 20 1942, Nikolai Starostin was arrested in front of his wife and daughter and then sent to Lubyanka, the headquarters of the NKVD and prison in the center of Moscow, where he stayed for two years. The same day, his three brothers, his family members and close friends of the Starostin family in connection with the Spartak were also arrested.

Nikolai Starostin was accused of terrorism, hijacking trains manufacturing products and then anti-soviet propaganda and promotion of the bourgeois sport. He was even accused of planning to assassinate Joseph Stalin during the organization of a football game in Red Square in 1936 under the orders of Aleksandr Kosarev, who was also arrested and later executed.

This was the second time the Starostins had had to defend themselves against severe accusations. In 1937, they had also been accused of ‘importing bourgeois sport into the Soviet Union’, but with the help of Kosarev, they had managed to clear their names. This time however, Kosarev’s execution had changed the circumstances, as Spartak lost their powerful patron.

During the two years at Lubyanka, Starostin was tortured by being forced to stay awake day and night until fall. Furthermore, he went through endless interrogations, and he lost the notion of time. Finally, he was given 10 years in Gulag. His brothers went through the same thing. The evidence against the four brothers came from Spartak athletes and administrators, who through torture had been forced to confirm a number of false accusations against the leaders of their club, among those that the brothers had in fact planned to assassinate Stalin in order to turn the Soviet Union into a fascist state.

The Gulag is for many synonymous with death, suffering and extreme living conditions. However, Nikolai Starostin discovered that in this hell people still loved football and Spartak. Just as it happened to Eduard Streltsov 16 years later, fame came to his help.

“The popularity of Spartak,” Starostin later recalled, “Preceded me widely.”

The fans simply did everything to protect him, and to make his difficulties more bearable, helping the person who gave them so much football in the past.

Nikolai Starostin was also the subject of particular interest for camps leaders who wished to see him lead their team.

“I remember, for example, a conversation between Burdakov and the general Barabanov, the chief of the Intlag camp.” Starostin recalled.

“So when will you manage to come with your team to Ukhta, in order to beat you? — asked Burdakov.

– I’ll come, I’ll come, replied Barabanov. — We’ll see who beats the other, especially that I now have a Starostin trainer!

– Which Starostin ?

– Aleksandr… that one.

– Really? No matter… My Starostin, Nikolai, will show your Starostin where the crabs hibernate.

– Well, we’ll see that.

It’s how I knew where Aleksandr was detained.”

The football championship of the Gulag camps had a fierce competition between the different camp leaders, who would often decide the fate of a war prisoner or a criminal based on his football skills. The most important thing was to strengthen their team. Nikolai Starostin was transferred to the East at the request of a general and during two years (1945-46) led the Dinamo Komsomolsk in Amur. After everything he had been through, he was now a Dinamo coach.

A lot of people wished to see him training their team. The son of Stalin himself , Vasily, did everything he could in 1950 to bring Nikolai Starostin back to Moscow to coach VVS Moscow, the team of the Soviet air force. Starostin was however banned from visiting Moscow, and despite the young Stalin’s protection, he had to leave the capital again to finish his sentence.

Afterwards, he traveled from city to city before finally landing in Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan, where he coached Dinamo Alma-Ata from 1952 to 1953.

Joseph Stalin died in 1952, and after trying to siege power, Beria was executed in 1953, which meant that Nikolai Starostin, his brothers and the many other victims of Stalin’s purges could finally see an end to the nightmare they had found themselves in. The Starostin brothers were released in 1954 and rehabilitated a few years later.

Nikolai Starostin sums up these years like this:

“It is really sad to have lost these years in Gulag. But a man with character needs to calm down. I calmed down because those years were not wasted in vain. A lot of things in life helped me to learn, gave me the opportunity to know my own country : From Ukhta to Vladivostok, Inta to Alma-Ata. And where was football, as this may be strange, turned out to be a place without Beria. A fan is a fan everywhere.”

Tchapaïev  forever!

Back in Moscow, Nikolai Starostin came back to his duties as a Director of the Sports Society Spartak, a position he would keep until 1992.  He led Spartak for more than 40 years as a leader, a family chief. His natural authority was found all around the club, with the players, the staff, the coach. But this authority was not despotic, Nikolai Starostin showed a lot of confidence in people.

In 1960, he trusted Nikita Simonyan by giving him the position of coach of Spartak at only 33 years old. This resulted in two national championships (1962, 1969) and three cups of the USSR (1963, 1965, 1971). In 1977, while Spartak was relegated into a lower division, Nikolai Starostin supported Konstantin Beskov, a renowned coach but with a past at Dinamo. And, despite what this representec for him, he knew that Beskov was the coach Spartak needed to bring back. The end of the Beskov era and his ousting from the post of Spartak coach also shows the limits of this confidence with a man such as Konstantin Beskov.

fanpicture.ru

In 1988, the diamond club turned the page of the Beskov era and Nikolai Starostin picked Oleg Romantsev to replace the iconic coach. He first sent him to coach Spartak Ordzhonikidze for a year, before returning to Spartak Moscow. Then he won a USSR Championship (1989), a Soviet Cup (1992), eight Russian’s championships (1992,93,94,97,98,99,2000,2001) and three Russian Cups (1994,1998,2003).

Close to his players in the locker room, he brought the winning culture that characterized him throughout his life. Leonid Trakhtenberg said:

“One day before a match against Dinamo Moscow, Gennady Logofet reported that Simonyan, detailing the strategy and game tactics, then asked Nikolai Starostin a rhetorical question: “Do you have something to add?” There was an unusual silence. And suddenly, Nikolai Starostin rolled the journal, where was written the rough draft of his speech, and shouted: “Come on! This is Dinamo!” He then hit a fly, which was on the glass. The players immediately understood and that was the end of the meeting. “

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russian football was once again in danger and facing uncertainties. And once again Tchapaïev, as Starostin had been nicknamed after Vasily Tchapaïev, a red army hero from the Bolshevik Revoution, rose to the challenge to help Russian football in its moment of need.

Alongside the likes of Oleg Romantsev, Pavel Sadyrin and Valeri Gazzaev, Nikolai Starostin signed a memorandum

sports.ru

which refused to participate in the football Championship of the CIS, which was supposed to replace the Soviet Championship. It was a slingshot towards sports institutions (Football Federation of the RSFSR, the Russian Association of Football), and it gave birth to the Russian Football Union. The professional League of football was born, creating a Russian Championship and a Russian Cup. At 90 years old, Nikolai Starostin was still fighting until the end to develop football in Russia.

His death on February 17 1996, at the age of 94 years affected all of Russian football – both Spartak lovers and rivals. Nikolai Starostin remains one of the most important figure in Spartak but also for Russian Football in general.

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Follow Vincent on Twitter: @Spartak_M_VT

Photo: Danny Armstrong

There are few cities more contradictory than St. Petersburg. Its uncanny likeness to a major European town – a product of the travels of its founder Peter I to the cities of Manchester and Leipzig to study their structures – seems to almost mock its status as the site of the Bolshevik October Revolution, the event that sheathed a Communist curtain between Russia and the west.

Nevertheless St. Petersburg’s markedly severe 313-year history seems to seep through its glorious architecture and flow into the hip vibe of the city. It manages to be “Russia’s window to the West” as well as preserve the memory of the Blockade of Leningrad. The result is an atmosphere that is typically patriotic but diluted, although not tainted, by a non-Russian element.

There is a distinct Petersburger pride in this outside factor. The city’s residents believe it places them ahead of the Russian curve in culture, simultaneously leaning to the west without ever losing their fierce affiliation with the Fatherland, the belief that they, not Muscovites, are the centre of Russia’s past and future.

It is a pride that is apparent in the city’s football ground when the capital calls. The visit of Spartak Moscow on Saturday was no exception.

St. Petersburg’s Petrovsky Stadium. Photo: Danny Armstrong

On the day of the game, my coach pulled into St. Petersburg from Moscow at around 7am. The air in the town was clear and biting but it became apparent as the day progressed that in it hung expectancy. Out of the four home games against Moscow sides in the RPL season, Zenit’s match with Spartak, the twenty-one times champions, is the most eagerly awaited.

Spartak were the standout team of the late 1980s, the 1990s and the early 2000s, racking up thirteen major honours under idiosyncratic coach Oleg Romantsev. Zenit represent the flashy Russian nouveau riche that has enjoyed varied success under various managers with players who play under various flags. Spartak’s manager Dmitry Alenichev is perhaps the greatest Russian player ever, tasked with returning the club to its glory days. Andre Villas-Boas is Zenit’s latest international recruit tasked with driving the team to further success.

Throughout the day, Spartak fans could be spotted in patches around the city. Some gathered on the beach at Peter and Paul Fortress, the town’s first ever building. Their bright crimson jackets and t-shirts making sure they stood out among the middle-aged Russian sunbathers who convened in skimpily-dressed lines along the thin strip of sand between the outer side of the fortress walls and the Neva River. The sight was as surreal as it sounds.

As early evening approached glimpses of fans of both sides became more frequent. Home supporters wearing white-blue-sky-blue scarves piled into the metro on the way to Sportivnaya, the closest station to the quaint Petrovsky Stadium. Nestled on the edge of the Petrogradsky district on Pitrovsky Island and framed beautifully by the Zhdanovka and Malaya Neva River, the ground will be sorely missed by supporters when Zenit leave move to Zenit Arena.

The completion date of the new stadium – which broke ground on the banks of Primorskaya on the very western edge of the city in 2007 – has been put back numerous times. The original date was proposed to be 2009. Last January, St. Petersburg Vice-Governor Igor Albin ensured supporters that construction is “82 percent finished” and likely to wrapped up in December. Upon inspection, the pristine, domed ground and the winding bridge that connects it to St. Petersburg’s mainland make the chances of it being completed on time look favourable. But seeing is never a reason to believe in Russia.

For the game on Saturday the Petrovksy provided a more than ample setting. An unexpected but pleasant autumnal sunshine had showered St. Petersburg throughout the day and was more than enough to illuminate the starting line ups as they emerged from the tunnel for the 19.30 kick off. Their arrival punctuated a bizarre pre-match ritual of preened young male dancers dressed in black with white gloves and waving around giant letters that spelled out a slogan accompanying Nissan cars driving around the running track. Both underlined the prevalence of Russian football’s commercialism.

Ultras from both sides had their own, more original slogans. The Music Hall crew – Zenit’s hooligan group – are situated in the Virazh fan zone, where a small banner reads ‘The Pride of the Northern Capital’ (Гордость северной столицы) a gentle reminder of their self-esteem. Shortly after Artyom Dzyuba received an award from the RFPL, recognising his hundredth career goal, they unfurled a sheet with the words “Where are your golden bills” (Где твои золотые билли), in reference to Zenit’s capture of Artyom Dzyuba from the Moscow club last year with a large caricature of the characters  from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. I was later told that it was an extremely popular Soviet cartoon. Go figure.

Photo: Danny Armstrong.

Around 2,000 Spartak supporters had made the journey north to create a menacing sea of red in the adjacent stand. At their end the St. Petersburg based ultras group The Aliens celebrated their 15th anniversary with a banner reading ‘The Aliens – 15 years among strangers’  (15 лет – The Aliens – среди чужих), and the Red-White fans sang and swayed in unison.

By kick off the atmosphere was bubbling. After a tame opening ten minutes, forward Ze Luis was played through on goal. The Zenit backline waited in vain for the linesman’s flag while the powerful Cape Verdean skipped past a committed Lodygin. Ze Luis was felled but the ball was slotted home by onrushing team mate Ivelin Popov, who wheeled away to celebrate in the corner opposite Spartak’s end, which was now a frantic ruckus of bodies framed by smoke.

First blood to Moscow. But it wasn’t long before Zenit levelled.

Four minutes later and Danny’s square ball from the left flank was cleared as far as Axel Witsel on the edge of the box whose deflected shot sailed high into Artyom Rebrov’s net. Opaque plumes of smoke and drums bellowed out from the Zenit Ultras end in celebration, accentuating the approaching dusk. All square.

The heavy smoke corrupted the view in the Zenit half. But it hardly caused a problem as the ball was held for large periods just above the Spartak box while Zenit pressed hard for a second.

But when a second goal came, it came against the run of play. On 21 minutes Quincy Promes found himself free on the left hand side. Lethargic Zenit defending was never going to trouble the rapid Dutchman who played the ball inside for Aleksandr Zotov. His pass played through Denis Glushakov who turned and smashed home. The home fans seemed to rise in unified apoplexy at the lack of a linesman’s flag for a second – and what they thought was a more obvious – case of offside. The goal saw Spartak lead 2-1 going into half time but neither side had managed to take control of a loose and fluid game.

Photo: Danny Armstrong

At the start of the second half the Spartak end was infected with coruscating flares that lit up bright red after a startling bang. But the red and white joy was only effervescent. Thirty eight seconds after the restart and Hulk raced through into the Spartak box, opened up his sizeable frame, and slotted past Rebrov to level. Music Hall obliged in matching the Spartak show just moments before and only urgent pops and bangs of flares being lit interrupted their scorching chants. From then on the momentum was very much with the home supporters; Fratria remained largely placid.

Then suddenly, Zenit took the lead. On 65 minutes Hulk carved the ball over to Dzyuba, who cushioned it on his chest and bobbled the ball into the net before covering his face with his shirt and walking off into the left hand corner of the pitch to celebrate being front for the first time in the match. 3-2. From then on Spartak chased the game, their lead squandered.

The sun had disappeared and dusk was firmly settled when Dzyuba turned provider six minutes later. The Sbornaya forward floated the ball across the box to Mauricio and the Brazilian sweetly half-volleyed into the net. In the Virazh stand a sea of bare chests emerged to heave out victorious chants, but the game wasn’t over yet.

On 78 minutes Makeev received a second yellow card for a slide tackle on Dzyuba, although it took the referee a few minutes to determine whether it was actually his second offence. When he did, the Spartak man was duly sent off and moodily threw himself over the advertising stands and past the goading gauntlet of Zenit fans surrounding the tunnel on the way to his early bath.

Zenit made the 10-men pay late on. Three minutes before the end and Hulk drifted in a free kick that caused a scramble in the six yard box. Witsel first failed to turn it in before the Spanish substitute Javi Garcia poked the ball home to score the game’s seventh goal.

On the final whistle the Petrovksy exploded, as if every inch of Petersburg’s rich history had collided with their European leanings to send one huge message to Moscow.

The Spartak fans attempted a minor pitch invasion at the end. It was caused when a loan Zenit fan broke onto the field and snatched a Spartak banner laid on the pitch. Men in black clambered over the cages separating them from the pitch. When they reached the other side they were chased and accosted by heftily dressed police men and escorted from the ground. But the unrest didn’t extend past these daredevil stunts.The significance of what happened was relayed to me by a journalist after the game.

Given the intense pitch at which the game was set form start to finish, such an act of familiarity seemed not only strange but rather sacrilegious and oblivious to common custom. But such is the state of Russian football that sometimes the men in charge are often far removed from the passion of the supporters.

And so the banners were unfastened, the flags stashed away and shirts again covered up chests. Both sets of fans streamed out into the St. Petersburg night knowing of the gravity of the result for the other. But whatever the quarrels between past and future, between current and original, every fan leaving the ground on Saturday night knew that footballing pride would be staying in the ‘other’ capital.

Follow Danny on Twitter: @DannyWArmstrong

The original (shorter form) of this article appeared in print 06.06.16, this online edition includes relevant links.

Some weeks ago the proverbial cat was put among the pigeons. As is known to anyone who can a) read English, b) watch Russian football or c) read the many reports from FIFPro on outrageous crimes against local footballers, all is not well with the wacky world of Russian football. Yet there is far more that goes on that the wider world and authorities don’t know about, mainly because of omerta in Russian football/sport and an inability to read Russian.

Footballers Dis-United

In Russia there are 2 footballers unions, actually, there is only one footballers union, the other is the ‘union of footballers and trainers and agents’ (PSFT), I’ll explain that a little later. So we have two, the All-Russia Football Players Union (ARFPU) and the one that was established a few years earlier. Having worked in football environments where unions were not present and/or actively discouraged, Russia’s situation is quite worrying.

In Malta I tried, as a club official, to organize players into a collective. I began at our own club, Floriana FC, and at one point had players from 6 Premier clubs and 9 other clubs from the 1st to 3rd, and a rep from Gozo, in one place at one time. In a French-style café in Msida we met to discuss a way to make conditions better for players and at least have a modicum of bargaining power and protection. A lawyer friend of mine helped draw up a Charter and prepare documents for registering a non-profit organization. It meant standing and recognition with the Ministry of Sport, MFA and Gozo FA and FIFPro.

All was going swimmingly until a local agent caught wind and inveigled his way into the set-up. Suddenly it all changed and changed utterly. He began recruiting players from within our group and signed them as clients. Worse, he was very close with a number of football club owners/presidents and games began. Players were threatened with retribution and be blacklisting. In a small market, being called a troublemaker is football and social death. This guy had no moral qualms about pretending to act in players’ best interests while making money off their backs. When I saw that the MFA were happy with the whole joke I stepped away and within 2 weeks it collapsed. The agent still operates today and is responsible for trafficking young African players to Malta, for a fee.

Russian Footballers Union (s)

In Russia the same dynamic develop with the older, aforementioned ‘players, trainers and agents union’. A failed businessman/ambitious agent sets it up, continues to act as before and gets legitimacy from a collegial body. Putting aside the murky background of the person, Mr. Nikolai Grammatikov, involved in establishing the union, the facts surrounding the actual association with the collegial body remain disturbing.

Our research increased. My 2 ground pounders made the calls, did the paper checks and spoke with the principals. What they found was far more worrying than initial fears. Below are the main points:

• Of the signatories on the articles of association (for the “union”), most were forged. The forged signatures include those of Russian International footballers, past and present. These documents were accepted and part of the process of association with FIFPro. They are currently under investigation by the august body.
• The “union” was established as the Union of ‘footballers, trainers and agents’. The “agents” bit was later dropped, yet the trainers remain.
• The principal appears to continue operating in the capacity of an agent. This completely flies against whole idea of having him as General Secretary of the players’ union.
• Of the more than 100 players and 46 trainers from all 3 levels of professional Russian football our researchers contacted, not a single one is a member of the union of footballers and trainers When asked for the number of members in their union, the “union” stated they were not obliged to tell anyone.

A source close to this “union”, speaking on condition of anonymity, said:

“Careful. You don’t want to mess with them. They won’t make a mistake as there is too much money at stake. It’s all a scam, but nobody will speak out except big footballers. They hate him (Grammatikov) and laugh at Leonchenko (President of PSFT). They’re making money from players and the union and the wrld body (FIFPro).”

However fair is fair and we didn’t want to go to press without hearing their side of the story. When the original article came out they made false claims against me as a person and then went on to libel me online. That they went online to claim I was deleting their tweets and blocking them, not responding to them and accusing me of misrepresenting the situation in Russia, was surprising. Especially as they were subsequently caught out on their own lies.

Shadow Chase

Despite being libeled by this “union”, I agreed to a meeting. Blatant lies to further an agenda is nothing unusual for them, though doing so when the World could see them being duplicitous was a new low. Their email, while rude and unapologetic for their libel, at least offered a chance to get their side on the record. To refute the mountain of accusations from players, trainers, club officials, Russian Football Union officials, FIFPro members and members of the Russian law enforcement community. Everybody, no matter what their troubled, murky past, deserves a day in court.

So I agreed and waited. And waited. The article deadline drew closer and they didn’t respond to any requests. Finally, with the Editor pulling the piece unless I submitted by Thursday, I wrangled an extension and asked the “union” to meet or answer questions before Saturday afternoon. 10 days had passed since we’d agreed to meet, they’d hidden in the shadows. Late Friday evening they responded that they’d only meet 6 days later and in the presence of their lawyers “that have big experience in representing players.” Apart from this they threw out their usual threats and attacked the ARFPU.

Cutting through their bluster and reminding them of the deadline, they were unwilling to meet or answer questions. Instead they made threats and insults. Which was unfortunate. Certainly they would have had to answer some serious questions, not just over forged documents and finances. One last time I tried to engage with them to at least answer some basic accusations made during interviews and investigations, instead they disappeared.

They had repeated – look at our Facebook page. So we did.

Social Pariahs

Apart from re-posts and some google translated articles from FIFPro, very little of note was on their Facebook page, until one of my researchers spotted a post from March 5th this year. It was this response which inspired further investigations. They, Grammatikov and his puppet Leonchenko, made a strange statement aimed at one Mr. Tarasov of the Lokomotiv Moscow parish. A regional lawyer took Tarasov’s cause to the Labour Court, suing Lokomotiv for punishing the player for his Europa League t-shirt incident. Revealing a t-shirt with VVP’s image and words that he is a “Polite President” drew ire on the player and club. The only problem was, the player hadn’t yet been punished and was peacefully discussing it with the club.

An associate of the lawyer told us, the order to take the case had come from the PSFT. While the paper trail was tough to deconstruct it was pretty convincing. Tarasov wrote a blunt letter, published on social media and told the PSFT to stop interfering. That he was a member of the actual players Union, the ARFPU. The regional lawyer quickly withdrew the case and was, we were told, furious to have been hung out to dry.

To get a clear overall view and try dispel the avalanche of negative reports and feedback, I took on personally to speak with contacts within clubs (current and former) and the Union. The former President of one club in the Volga Region reported that a representative of the Grammatikov had contacted him, offering a player who was unsettled in his current club. The player was about to exploit a loophole in his contract under advise from the “union” and leave for free. Yet the Volga Region club would have to pay a large fee, to an agency associated with the “union”‘s GS. The former President called the players club and was told that a “union” representative (the same person who had made the initial call) had been sniffing around the club asking questions. The player did move, for a fee, though it was paid to the club.

Two clubs were offered “services” by representatives of the PSFT, a current Commercial Director told us:

“They wanted to have a member of theirs come in and organise the scouting, recruitment and managing of players. Our President asked our Sports Director, who was categorically against. I, then, thought it was a novel idea as I had just started in the club. I thought it a free “union” service and I wasn’t aware of the background of the people involved. Our Sports Director was, and blocked the move. I thought it very strange that a “union” would work in this manner, especially demanding fees from clubs for consulting. It was like extortion, he said – “We can keep your players happy.””

A former employee of the RFU and RFPL was blunt in telling me that the “union” were still operating as agents and had not paid him a fee for a marketing project he’d undertaken. He believes that funding had come from “a foreign source” (most likely FIFPro) and never went to the project. In any case the project never saw the light of day and he was left out of pocket for more than $3000.

I needed some good news at least. It couldn’t always have been so bad. Surely it began with great hopes and then life got in the way. So we 3 went digging again. It was a terrible error.

A Union of None or just one

A Russian Footballers Union that could channel the power of FIFPro would be a panacea for many ills in the Russian game. In fact I’d go so far as to say it’d be the most important development in Russian sport since the 1980’s. Yet the PSFT was built on thin air, not solid ground. What Mr. Grammatikov refused to address was that peculiar situation regarding the founding documents. Why indeed would he, if it could up with him in hotter water than he was already personally in at the time.

In 2005, unable to attend the sign-up with FIFPro in Holland having been arrested leaving the country, Mr. Grammatikov gave his travel companions a bunch of papers before being led away by the police. The documents were for the formation of the “union” and contained the forged signatures. It was all a fake. Not that that was anything new to the gentleman in question, though we digress.

In order to clear up a situation where notable footballers and individuals were “members” of this fantasy set-up, we double-checked our facts.

• The documents submitted to the Russian Ministry of Justice on May 30th 2005, for registration of the Union of footballers, trainers and agents contained 2 forged signatures. This was confirmed with both men.
• According to the documents in our possession, on December 20th, 2005, a conference was held to fine tune the “union” with a stellar line-up. Yet 5 of those who supposedly attended, confirmed that they didn’t.
• 2 players (Vladimir Bystrov and Igor Denisov) signed statements that not only had their signatures been forged on PSFT documents, but that they had never taken part in any part of the registration or “union” formation.
• In addition to those above, the signature of Andrey Arshavin was also found to have been forged on the documents. He said that he did not sign the document.
• The meeting to establish a players rep committee from Zenit was supposed to have taken place on April 28th, 2005. Arshavin, Bystrov and Denisov (named in the documents) confirmed they took no part in this.

So, to summarise: forged documents, no transparency, no sense. And yet Mr. Grammatikov’s personal “union” has served him well.

A very Russian business

When I worked in archaeology one of the prized places to dig on a site was in the cess pit/toilet. I remember happy days in Ireland digging up medieval iron spearheads, gold nuggets, leather shoes and even a brooch. The PSFT and past of their GS proved to be quite the bountiful cess pit. It was obvious why they had refused to meet or even answer simple questions. Mr. Grammatikov and his PSFT aren’t keen on disclosure.

Personally, we sought to ignore remarks about him and focused on football matters. This became almost impossible when we contacted a former employee of Kuban Krasnodar who stated Mr. Grammatikov was willing to make the issues of the club’s disgraceful dispute with a player (Nizetic) disappear – for a fee. We heard this time and again. And it has been reported ad nauseam in the media.

So, having dropped the “agents” bit from the official title of the “union” at the fantasy conference attended by far fewer than the 24 stated, it seemed odd that it continued to have, as General Secretary, the man who was representing the “Association of football agents”, and who was openly a football agent. Even during this past winter transfer window the Gen. Sec. of the PSFT and his President appear to have continued their agent activities according to more than a dozen witnesses in Russian football.

The evidence mounts:
Lorenzo Melgarejo – Kuban to Spartak

Sergey Yashin – Volga NN to Shinnik Yaroslavl

Alexander Samedov – Spartak Moscow

These are a very, very select few from mainstream Russian media. Is it any wonder the Russian football establishment refuses to do business with this “union” and that footballers are suspicious about being near it? The unfortunate, stained past of Mr. Grammatikov just keeps being dragged into the present too.

The refusal to honour a Memorandum of Understanding to join forces with the ARFPU removed any last vestige of legitimacy from the PSFT. As a Russian sports journalist, now with Match TV commented – “In Ireland would you put a convicted priest in charge of a kindergarden?” While the parallel is unfortunate and tapered for his Irish audience, I got the point. The idea of a Russian Footballers Union in the hands of a football agent does seem counter-intuitive. There is a Russian Footballers Union, though it needs to wait for recognition while FIFPro investigates the “union of footballers, trainers and agents”. Until then Russian footballers will continue to suffer and Russian football (and sports) will remain in freefall. The irony of a proper, legal and transparent Russian Footballers Union (ARFPU) already with the support of players, clubs and Union having to wait for a foreign investigation to be allowed full recognition is not lost on anyone here, and many abroad. The “union” of one will need some mighty impressive signatories, legal ones, to get out of this cess pit.