1: Leonid Slutsky has lost his aura of invincibility
Leonid Slutsky’s achievements in the past are indisputable. The 45-year-old CSKA Head Coach has won three Russian championships and two cups since taking over the Army Men in 2009, and he was furthermore the mastermind behind their sensational Champions League quarterfinal the same season.
Despite working with a significantly smaller budget than his competitors in the top of the Russian Football Premier League (RFPL), Slutsky has transformed his CSKA team into a well-oiled machine able to not only compete with but also beat the likes of Zenit and Spartak and their expensive stars.
However, after a disappointing Euro tournament this summer, and what looks to be another poor Champions League campaign with CSKA, the Red-Blue fans have begun calling for the Volgograd native’s head.
For a man who has been considered a saint for many years, this has been a surprising turn of events, especially considering CSKA have just moved into a brand new arena, and really should be flourishing with optimism at the moment.
2: Ufa is a serious opponent
After getting just four points in their first five games of the season, Ufa and head coach Viktor Goncharenko took things up a notch in September. The team from the Republic of Bashkortostan won four and drew one game in September, and they are now 9th in the league while also being qualified for the Round of 16 in the Russian Cup.
To make things even more impressive, Ufa’s schedule for September was terrifying, but they still managed to get six points from two trips to Moscow to face Lokomotiv and Spartak, while also being one of just two clubs this season who have kept Fyodor Smolov and FC Krasnodar from scoring as they held them to 0-0.
In October, Ufa will take another trip to Moscow as they face CSKA away before they face Rostov at home.
3: The Russian Cup is a difficult tournament
The early rounds of the cup tournaments usually see various big sides draw provincial canon fodder. However, this was far from the case when the RFPL sides made their entrance in the 16th finals at the end of September. Due to the regulations of the tournament, all the RFPL clubs played away from home, which caused some major problems at those clubs who faced long trips. Both CSKA and Rostov practically sent youth teams to their away matches after the realization that competing in three tournaments were too much for their thin squads, and they were unsurprisingly eliminated by Yenisey and Dinamo Moscow respectively.
Spartak on the other hand send their entire first team, with the exception of a few injured players, on a nine hour plane trip to the Far East to face SKA Kharabovsk. This didn’t help much though as the Red-Whites lost 1-0 and thus wasted a lot of energy. Five of 16 RFPL sides were eliminated as Arsenal Tula and Tom Tomsk also failed to beat lower ranked teams.
4: Zenit and Giuliano is a match made in heaven
Many people feared for Zenit’s chances when they sold Hulk and replaced him with the relatively unknown Brazilian Giuliano before this season. The 26-year-old Brazilian moved to St. Petersburg from Brazilian side Gremio after having represented Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in the Ukrainian league with success between 2011 and 2014.
Giuliano has however been quick to ease the mind of the worried fans, and in September he finally clocked in as a major profile in the league when he contributed with four goals six assists in five games for the Blue-White-Sky Blues. His performances has even earned him a call up to the Brazilian national team for the first time since 2012, and no one is thinking about Hulk these days.
5: Hiring Semin isn’t enough to turn things around for Lokomotiv Moscow
It came as little surprise when 69-year-old Yuri Semin was hired as head coach for Lokomotiv at the end of August. Semin joined the club after Ilya Gerkus had replaced Olga Smorodskaya as president, and was chosen to be the man to rebuild the Red-Green Railroaders.
The expectations to Semin, who guided Lokomotiv to two championships and four Russian cup trophies during the last two decades, were naturally huge, but his return hasn’t bettered the results. Apart from a cup victory against Khimki, Loko lost three games and drew one in September, and they are currently on the 13th place in the league with just eight points for nine games and six scored goals.
When watching Lokomotiv play, it is difficult to find out exactly what it is Semin wants from his team, and it is obvious that the many years of turmoil and different coaches under Smorodskaya has taken its toll on the squad and the players. Turning things around for Lokomotiv is bound to take a long time.
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