It’s been a week of differing fortunes for Russian football, as an inauspicious start to the domestic campaign was followed by midweek success beyond its borders.
As most of this week’s attention in the Champions League focussed on Jose Mourinho’s return to, and humbling of his former club, arguably a greater upset was going on fairly unnoticed in sunny Spain.
CSKA Moscow defied the odds to record a famous victory for club and country against La Liga flyers Sevilla. After drawing 1-1 at the Luzhniki Stadium a fortnight previous, the Army-Men produced a fine display in Andalucía to make themselves the first Russian side to reach the quarter-finals for fourteen years since Spartak Moscow reached the same stage in 1996. Despite recent successes in the UEFA Cup, the added quality of the Continents top competition has so far proved a bridge too far, with a succession of Russian champions making little headway against the elite.
The win also firmly put to bed CSKA’s Annus Horribilis of 2009, when the club finished an unacceptable fifth in the Premier League, disposing of costly acquired managers, Zico and Juande Ramos in the process. The new man in charge, Leonid Slutsky, or the ‘Russian Mourinho’ if you are a fan of far-fetched comparisons, has overseen a relatively successful renaissance in his brief time in the role since taking over towards the end of last season. Indeed, Slutsky’s first game in the CSKA dugout was a baptism of fire at Old Trafford in November, where his new side almost sprang another shock before letting slip a 3-1 lead to draw. That was followed by wins against Wolfsburg and Besiktas as Slutsky’s immediate influence saw CSKA qualify for the latter stages of the Champions League for the first time in their history.
That meant the club could look forward to a positive start to their 2010 season as they try to forget the rigours of the year before. Slutsky’s arrival into coaching came around through almost comic bad luck, when his playing career was ended at just 19 after he injured his knee falling out of a tree whilst trying to save a neighbour’s cat. The RSPCA’s loss was managements gain and at 38, Slutsky is viewed as Russia’s next great managerial asset, following in the footsteps of the legendary Oleg Romantsev.
Slutsky’s unlikely affiliation to Mourinho stops at age and tactical wisdom. The portly coach has a face like a cartoon bad guy, and lacks all of the Portuguese’s cool demeanour and mannerisms. From the first kick at the Sanchez Pizjuan, Slutsky gave the impression he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown as he busily patrolled his technical area, biting his fingernails, ruffling his hair, rolling his jacket sleeves up and then back down again, and generally unnerving everyone around him. Not that his apprehensions got to his players, as a well taken Tomas Necid strike and a Keisuke Honda free-kick meant CSKA will take their place in the pot for the quarter final draw in Nyon on Friday. Having ruffled Manchester United’s feathers and got the better of one of Spain’s top teams, the Muscovite’s represent a tricky task for the rest of the field, not least with their home games being played on the artificial surface at the Luzhniki, but also, as the Western European sides come close to concluding long itinerary’s, CSKA will remain relatively fresh having only just resumed activities.
This result gave Russian football a much needed boost after an uncertain few weeks prior to the league getting under way. The pre-amble to the big kick-off was dominated by the financial perils of a host of clubs, so much so that there were strong doubts the league would actually contain the full complement of teams. FC Moscow had already been pulled from the competition whilst the Russian Government had to step into to fund the participation of Krylia Sovetov and Tom Tomsk after they’d accrued large debts. Even now, a number of Krylia’s players are threatening to go on strike over unpaid wages, and they have been shorn of a number of their first team squad due to contractual disputes. Nevertheless, the season got underway as planned. Sort of.
The opening weekend was a poor advertisement for a league which has made huge strides over the past few years. The eight fixtures, mostly played out in driving snowfall and in front of sparse crowds, produced an underwhelming total of eleven goals as proceedings started with a whimper. No team managed to score more than twice and only one game saw both sides hit the net. This was also pre-empted by another turgid game the week before in the ‘Super Cup’ which was far from super as the miserly champions Rubin Kazan edged out CSKA 1-0.
With their European quest coming up midweek, CSKA got the action, or lack of it, started on Friday night when a late Honda goal saw them sneak past Amkar Perm. Cash-strapped and crisis-torn Krylia Sovetov only went down by a single goal to the billionaire’s of Zenit, who now have former Roma coach Luciano Spalletti in charge, and in the first Moscow derby of the year, Dinamo edged out Spartak...1-0. In a relative goal-fest, title holders Rubin rained in two as they got their defence of to a winning start against Lokomotiv and they are joined at the top of the premature table by Tom Tomsk and Chechen side Terek Grozny, as they also recorded 2-0 wins over FC Rostov and Sibir Novosibirsk, respectively.
So, in the hectic and often unpredictable world of Russian football, things were in danger of getting going in a mundane and low-key fashion, until, Omari Tetradze, Coach of last season’s First Division champions Anzhi Makhachkala, resigned just three days into the new term, after one game – a 0-0 draw at home to Spartak Nalchik. As yet, no specific reasons have been given for his decision to leave but in a statement Tetradze announced he had quit this early into the season in order to allow the incoming coach time to make adjustments to the squad prior to the April transfer deadline. Quite why he couldn’t do that at the end of last year, or before the season started remains to be seen, but, like so many things in this weird and wonderful country, there is most likely a lot more to it than meets the eye.
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