I made the mistake a few years back of falling in love with a foreign sports league. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the Russian Premier League, but rather that I now belong to that weird, vaguely-defined “hipster” crowd. I spend my time on Twitter talking about Shirokov, Ozbiliz, Tagirbekov, and Sapogov, Kuban’s Europa League chances and Volga’s campaign to avoid relegation. Oh, and I bought skinny jeans to look like everyone else in Moscow.
It’s bad. I’ve detached from baseball games in the summer and hoops in the winter to embrace a league that probably no more than half a dozen people from my home state of Indiana could discuss intelligibly. What’s worse, almost every Russian I’ve shared my obsession with thinks I’m either crazy or cute…anything but serious.
But those are the types of problems a kid faces, when he grows up in Ohio for eight years, splits the next eight between Dagestan, Indiana and Moscow, and then bounces around Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Moscow for nine more. You don’t generally share many experiences with others and you sure don’t end up with the same interests.
With all that upheaval, it took a little while for the seeds planted watching Spartak battle Oliver Kahn’s mighty Bayern Munich in the 2001 Champions League and suffering through Russia’s calamitous 2002 World Cup campaign to take root. Having left Russia in 2004, I returned to Moscow in 2009, a fan of the national team and Spartak and a close observer of Anzhi’s fortunes in the 2nd division, but with very little actual knowledge. I’d never even watched a full league match.
Between classes that spring and research work that summer, I packed in as much live Russian football as I could. A few days after arriving in late March, I watched Russia scrape by Azerbaijan, 2-0, in front of 62,000 fans at Luzhniki Stadium (ironically, the next Russian national team match I would see was nearly an exact copy - 1-0 to Russia over Azerbaijan in Luzhniki last fall). Then it was a steady diet of league competition: Lokomotiv - Krylia Sovetov and lots of Spartak, highlighted by Spartak’s 2-1 triumph over CSKA in front of 75,000.
Russia’s biggest sports daily, Sport-Express, though, was most responsible for my Russian football obsession. It packed all the info and history on Russian football that I could handle and I read it voraciously, cover to cover, riding the metro to class, in between class periods, at train stations, stadiums and airports. Russian sports journalists had a corner on the blog market long before the Internet dreamed up the term, and the tidbits on Spartak fans’ mass outings to Rostov in the summer and Krylia Sovetov striker Jan Koller’s adjustment to Russia, sandwiched in between match reports, were fascinating.
And as Anzhi battled for promotion that summer, even the 2nd division came to life, most memorably thanks to a club named MVD (acronym for Russian Interior Ministry). Founded in 2007, the Moscow Region outfit reached Russia’s second tier in a flash before folding that July, under suspicion the club had been financed in part by extorted money.
When I returned to America in August, I even looked into subscribing to Sport-Express, which had a small press in New York City, but chickened out because of the cost. Then, for a few more years, my interest went into hibernation, limited to checking scores and catching the occasional illegal stream. I graduated from college, did a year of service in Madison, Wisconsin, and got married.
The summer of my wedding, a friend asked if I’d like to contribute to a sports blog he was thinking of starting. He never did get the site going, but his question couldn’t have come at a better time. I decided I did want to be a writer, as ridiculous as it felt to say out loud.
I was watching Anzhi matches religiously by this time, having cooled off to Spartak after a notorious pogrom in downtown Moscow, incited by Spartak fans, against natives of the North Caucasus region where I had lived.
It didn’t hurt that Anzhi were flush with cash. My new-found passion coincided nicely with the club’s “New History”, the slogan on display everywhere in Dagestan. The narrative gets a bit fuzzy for a while, as my commitment to Anzhi, Russian football and writing conflicted with work and a series of exhausting moves for my wife and I between Minnesota, Moscow and Indiana, but this winter the journey finally began in earnest, first in writing for The False Nine, then more comprehensively when I helped to found Russian Football News.
As I thought about how to put this article together, I realized the best I could do was simply share why my personal calendar revolves around Russian football and not other more glamorous leagues. You may not have any more interest in Russian football after reading this, but I hope I can convince you of my own passion.
A purely subjective club-by-club guide to loving the Russian Premier League:
ZENIT - Midfielder Roman Shirokov, in as big a helping as you can find. He’s bitterly funny (Saturday, after told Pacos de Ferreira lost 13 players this offseason, Shirokov asked if they’d also lost all their funding and, when asked to clarify, gestured at Anzhi’s locker room), has his children’s birthdays tattooed on his forearms, may be Russia’s most creative playmaker and once failed to travel with Torpedo to a match in St. Petersburg, before trying to get off scotch-free by improvising a cast for his leg and feigning injury.
And say what you like about Luciano Spalletti’s conflict management skills, but the Italian manager clearly bleeds blue-white-sky blue. I remember his long walk across Makhachkala’s Dynamo Stadium a few years ago, after all the players had already left for the locker room, to thank the fans that had traveled thousands of kilometers to cheer on Zenit in Dagestan.
SPARTAK - Valery Karpin’s ripped jeans. The former Spartak and Valencia midfielder has been Spartak coach on and off since 2009, and increases the RPL’s “hipness” ten-fold. Combined with his laconic wit and the fan bases’s almost complete lack of faith in his managing ability, deserved or not, Karpin is one of the more polarizing figures in Russian football.
It’s fun, too, to see how long Spartak’s title chances last each season, with the most recent trophy coming ten years ago in the Russian Cup. Spartak are always among the league leaders in attendance and well supported on the road, but the pressure to succeed is also highest for the Red and White. When the club begins to fall out of contention, the frustration and despair knows no limits, particularly with rivals CSKA and Zenit enjoying so much success in recent years. On the other hand, when Spartak do win a league title again, the celebrations will be unmatched.
CSKA - President Evgeni Giner runs a tight ship at the Army Club. CSKA have a lot of similarities to my favorite NBA team, the San Antonio Spurs: an ability to buy cheap and turn a tidy profit, a tactically brilliant coach, a core of veteran leadership, plenty of championships and, you’ve got to admit, a fairly small fan base.
It’s a great mystery why the fans don’t turn out for CSKA matches. Hopefully a new stadium close to downtown Moscow will help solve the problem, but other than that sticking point, CSKA have everything going for them.
ANZHI - The pride of Dagestan, my home for five years, I can’t help but love Anzhi, no matter the ups and downs. Forget about the “Anzhi crash of 2013″, Anzhi fans have already been through worse. In 2000, the club was denied its first-ever third-place finish by a dubious stoppage-time penalty to Torpedo in the final match of the season. The following season the club took the lead in the Russian Cup final in the 90th minute, only for Lokomotiv to equalize in stoppage time and win on penalties. Then, in its first-ever European appearance that fall, Anzhi were not permitted to host at home and lost 1-0 to Rangers on neutral ground in Poland. The next season, they were demoted.
But, it’s those types of memories that bond a fan to the team (even if I didn’t actually experience them in real time). Last season provided more heartbreak - a loss on penalties to CSKA in the Russian Cup final and stoppage-time elimination at the hands of Newcastle in the Europa League Round of 16.
DYNAMO - Termed the “trash”, another nickname for the police, Dynamo’s roots in the Soviet Union’s secret police force aren’t a great marketing tool. More realistically, though, they’re just the whipping boys for an era in which no club rose to the top without political backing, much like today’s system of financial have’s and have not’s.
A friend of mine, whose dad works for Dynamo, and goes to all the home matches, keeps me interested in the team, even now when it’s hard to stomach the club’s swoop for Anzhi’s Russian core of Kokorin, Zhirkov and Denisov. Russian talent, in fact, is what drives Dan Petrescu’s squad, as evidenced by 18-year-old Andrei Panyukov’s equalizer last night vs Krasnodar. Could Dynamo, now backed by Kremlin insiders, be the next Zenit?
LOKOMOTIV - If I were picking a Moscow team these days, it would have to be Lokomotiv, the lovable underdog with a brief patch of glory about a decade ago. A nice stadium and easily marketable brand, given its connection to the Russian Railways, make Lokomotiv feel fresh and fun when the team is playing well.
But who are we really kidding? My recent surge in Lokomotiv love is mostly because they were the first club to give RFN press credentials. Count it.
KRASNODAR - This club starts and finishes with Mr. Sergey Galitsky, owner of Russia’s largest supermarket chain - Magnit - and a heavy investor in youth football. Galitsky has an entertaining twitter account (I even got a reply once - the highlight of my Twitter career so far!), every football-related bit of which is instantly posted on major Russian football sites as news. He’s been known to play 20 simultaneous games of chess against his football academy kids, do commentary for youth matches on Krasnodar TV, and take great pleasure in thumbing his nose at Moscow elitism.
His latest initiative is promising free tickets to away fans that refrain from offensive chants and banners at Krasnodar home games. Galitsky’s far more public and open than other owners in the league and brings positive publicity to his club, which he’s built from nothing in just five years.
KUBAN - The Krasnodar club with history and more popularity, Kuban fans are going bonkers over Europa League competition. 32,000+ will crowd into Kuban Stadium for the Feyenoord match, and expect the same if they reach the group stages. The support is a huge boost to a team that never seems fazed by key departures - Aleksei Ionov, Aras Ozbiliz and Vladislav Kulik in recent months.
You want the RPL’s hipster team? Kuban fit the bill. Provincial, outstanding fans, Europa League and Djibril Cisse leading the charge up front.
TEREK - Spend some time following Russian football and you’ll soon see that Terek vice-president Khaidar Alkhanov is tough to top for opinions and blistering comebacks. He’s the only Russian club official to repeatedly lambaste the prospect of a United Championship with Ukraine, refused to admit that Terek had anything to apologize for after Ramzan Kadyrov labeled a ref corrupt and “a goat” over the stadium loudspeakers, and then pinned the subsequent one-match home ban on Zenit interference.
Terek have spunk, which shows on the football field, too, and always manage to keep the league from becoming stale and predictable. Whether that’s to their benefit isn’t for me to decide, but I like the verve.
RUBIN - Chances are you’ve heard something negative about Rubin. You ain’t getting that from me. Just check out dreamy Venezuelan forward Salomon Rondon, whose bruising strength and height up front perfectly match Kurban Berdyev’s counter-attacking style, and stout, practically rotund Gokdeniz Karadeniz, the Turkish midfielder who wants to stay in Kazan after retirement. Rubin are a united team, always up for a fight, led by Mr. Berdyev, a citizen of Turkmenistan, and among the league’s most feared coaches.
Once the team moves into brand-new Kazan Arena this fall, the prettiest football facility you’ll find in Russia, who knows what heights they may attain (oh wait, they already won two league titles back in 2008 and 2009).
URAL - My enthusiasm for the Ekaterinburgers faded just a bit when Serder Serderov returned to Anzhi from a short-lived loan, but Anzhi youngster Evgeni Pomazan is still between the sticks and journeyman forward Spartak Gogniev make this my favorite squad amongst the outsiders. Spartak is quite at home at Ural after leading the 2nd tier in goals scored last season and off to a fast start this year. I mean, how can you not love someone in Russian football named Spartak? That’s the equivalent of a Yankee Brown playing baseball or Celtic Thomas in the NBA.
Plus, Ural fans are already among the attendance leaders in the Russian league, drawing 21,000+ for a match vs Amkar this weekend.
TOM - At least for now, there is one club in the league I don’t care about. Sorry, Tom, it’s you. Enjoy the FNL next season.
AMKAR - Coach Stanislav Cherchesov is my kind of guy. When I think about it, I get very strong associations to my high-school math teacher in Dagestan - a hulking, muscular man who would prowl behind the desks observing our work, delivering a well-placed flick of his fingers to the back of the head if we screwed up, usually accompanied by a sarcastic growl, “Aren’t the balls spinning [in your head] today, Andrei?” But somehow he taught me to love trigonometry.
I imagine the same with Cherchesov, his meaty hands behind his back, prowling the Amkar practice field every afternoon, ripping players to shreds when needed, all the while constructing a rugged, disciplined squad that takes pleasure in executing his strategies.
Throw in a dose of midfielder Makhach Gadzhiev, another beloved Dagestan product, and I’m good to go.
ROSTOV - Artem Dzyuba is handing in the ultimate “screw-you” performance so far this season at Rostov, his seven goals in five matches, plus a national team appearance, the perfect response to the jubilation many Spartak fans expressed when he left Moscow this summer. Assisted by fellow Spartak loan Jano Ananidze and Dmitri Kalachev in midfield, Rostov’s offense is humming.
Then there’s recent Anzhi departure and Dagestan native Kamil Agalarov plowing the right wing on defense. No one expects Rostov’s stay at the top to last long, but with an experienced goalie in Pletikosa and rising stars on offense, the team is well on the way to earning Most Improved honors. That sounds pretty good to the growing crowds at Olimp-2 stadium, who have suffered through two straight years of relegation playoffs.
KRYLIA SOVETOV - Despite the most commie of names in the Premier League, “Wings of the Soviets”, Krylia remind me more of Russia around the turn of the century. That’s when the hardy club, the only non-Moscow team to never be demoted in post-Soviet history, enjoyed its greatest success, finishing 3rd and leading all of Eastern Europe in attendance one season (about 25,000). Krylia are that rare provincial side with solid history and stability, though there isn’t a whole lot to get excited about in the future, either, if financing doesn’t increase. But that’s true of any club this size and Krylia tend to make the most of their abilities.
VOLGA - Dmitri Sychev now calls Nizhny Novgorod home. Still just 29 years old, the former Lokomotiv and Spartak man, with 47 national team caps, could already be on his way out of big-time football. But if he can find success at Volga against the odds, the redemption story spin will be on full blast.
As for the club itself, how cool is it that they earned their ticket to the Premier League two seasons ago by defeating crosstown rival Nizhny Novgorod in a playoff battle, with the losing club subsequently forced to fold?
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