Russian Football Championship-2023 starts

The next Russian championship, which opens today with the match between Dynamo and Krasnodar, is a tournament with a layout that is probably a little more complicated than it looks at first glance. In any case, there are nuances hinting that it is possible that it will be more difficult to get to the new, sixth consecutive champion title for Zenit than the previous five, both because of their own personnel changes and because of competitors ready to add.

For Zenit, a very noticeable record is at stake in this championship. Well, or, more precisely, a repetition of a very noticeable record. At the turn of the past and present centuries, from 1996 to 2001, which then reigned in domestic football, which had no idea that different times were ahead of it – and huge money, allowing top players to get out from under the noses of European giants, dreaming of European Cup triumphs, and complete international isolation with suspension from continental tournaments, Spartak gave out a long series of half a dozen wins these championships. The current Zenith currently has five. One more gold – and the St. Petersburg club will catch up with Spartak. Moreover, in an era when, whatever one may say, there are more teams with great ambitions than in the 1990s.

A superficial look, clinging only to obvious moments, of course, causes a terrible temptation to think that everything should stick together with a record at Zenit without problems. Petersburgers won these five previous championships with a margin, without much strain. And each only confirmed that a club with solid resources and a honed ability to manage them, in fact, has no one to throw down the gauntlet. At least on a long distance, and not in a month or two. Those who want to make such a throw are constantly found, but there is not enough power, experience. And in this sense, the first half of the summer transfer campaign has not changed anything. None of the giants, including CSKA and Spartak, who finished in the last championship after Zenit, made such acquisitions that would hint at a radical breakthrough. That is, say, the sudden transformation of Jesús Medina from an army man to a Spartacus player is, of course, a noticeable event, but hardly a turning point for the history of one or another club. A small adjustment, which does not mean that now Spartak’s attack will bloom with bright colors, and CSKA’s attack, on the contrary, will turn sour. The rest of the transactions already carried out by domestic clubs are from the same category.

But there are nuances that force us to reconsider our ideas about the alignment. It is possible that it is not so simple.

Firstly, everything is not so simple with Zenit. He won his five gold medals in a row, easily going through personnel metamorphoses. And, let’s say, now it’s funny to remember that for a couple of years his main trump card seemed to be a bunch of Artem Dziuba and Serdar Azmun. As it turned out, the Petersburgers are able to part with it painlessly, and their coach Sergey Semak can easily rebuild the game model. But this transfer window could be too special for Zenit in terms of losses. It no longer has either Wendel or Daler Kuzyaev. Kuzyaev was a significant element of the attack, and the role of the Brazilian, with his talent to close the entire central zone, was generally drawn to the key one. But the matter will most likely not be limited to them, according to the news that appears almost daily. With the departure of Malcolm, the top scorer of the last championship, to Saudi Arabia, the issue, judging by them, has actually been resolved. And on the agenda is also the departure of Claudinho, the most creative player of Zenit, with Wilmar Barrios, the main defensive midfielder. What if they all really leave the club?

Zenith’s squad will still remain strong and deep. But still, we are talking about not just strong players, but system-forming ones: it is insanely difficult to stop the disappearance of such players on the move. Even Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, with his luxurious bench length and quality, would certainly be horrified if Kevin De Bruyne, Rodri and Erling Haaland were deprived of him at once. And Zenit, playing far from a combat option, was seen by everyone last season. With him, he fought without much brilliance in the reformatted Cup of the country and fled the race in the accelerating part of the playoffs. The fact that he doesn’t care whether he plays as reservists or as leaders is a myth.

Secondly, everything is not so simple with rivals, who used to denote competition rather. The season leading up to the new one left the feeling that for some it was a kind of reset phase with inevitable anguish. In this row, there are Spartak, who got used to each other with the young Spanish coach Guillermo Abascal, and Dynamo, which seems to have got into milk with a mentor, now deciding to try Czech Marcel Lichka instead of Serb Slavisa Jokanovic, who knows Russian football realities better thanks to work with Orenburg, and two more clubs, whose potential is ideally described by numbers.

The difference in the class of teams, as a rule, is illustrated by the final standings, in this case screaming about the unconditional superiority of Zenit. But it does not take into account some specific circumstances, for example, the fact that some team had to look for its optimal image, polish it during the championship. And from this point of view, the table ranking its participants according to the results of the spring part, just after the break for polishing, is much more relevant. And here’s a surprise: in it, Zenit, who scored 28 points in 13 rounds and, in general, kept the pace, nevertheless, is only third. In the score, CSKA coach Vladimir Fedotov, who came from Sochi in the summer of 2022, brought to mind by spring 2022, and even higher than him is a surprise – Lokomotiv, which was in poverty before the winter break, sinking into the basement of the classification, but after it lured Mikhail Galaktionov from Pari Nizhny Novgorod to the coaching post, and strengthened the base with Sergey Pinyaev and Artem Dzyu battle, gained amazing effectiveness. What if they saved momentum?

By the way, last Saturday the season officially opened with the match against CSKA for the Zenit Super Cup. He won a victory, but a difficult one, on penalties. And with Malcolm, Claudinho and Wilmar Barrios on the field.

Alexey Dospekhov