“Lokomotiv Moscow’s last home game of the season was against crisis club Mordovia Saransk, who needed a win for a relegation play-off, and the choice of which Moscow football club to watch was narrowed to two. CSKA were away to poor Rubin Kazan and beat them as they strolled to another title. Spartak were also on the road, at Ufa, and the only other option was to go to Khimki and watch Dynamo look for a favour from Zenit. Apart from being Tim’s favourite team, it was a no-brainer to go to Cherkizovo.” backpagefootball

Dynamo Moscow – An historic failure, a long time coming
“A 3-1 defeat in Naples meant that Dynamo Moscow’s chances of making it to the quarter finals of the 2015 Europa League looked slim; but after some solid performances in the competition already, turning the tie around was not out of the question. In the end a fairytale comeback wasn’t meant to be – Rafael Benitez’s side held on despite Dynamo’s best efforts with the second leg ending 0-0, though this was a performance and a team that the fans could be proud of after years of mismanagement and under-achievement.” backpagefootball

“Former Partizan Belgrade manager Marko Nikolić, who is considered as one of the most talented Serbian managers at the moment, got himself into the spotlight last week for the wrong reason, and this incident is likely to have a negative impact on his career. Nikolić, who is now plying his trade at NK Olimpija Ljubljana, called his player Blessing Eleke a “black idiot”—a racial slur that was widely reported throughout Europe.” futbolgrad

“The story is an improbable one that is typical of the industry that retold and reshaped it; a group of war prisoners who take on their captors on a football pitch and surprisingly manage to defy the odds (and instructions) to end the game in a draw. There is an American hero in the form of a rookie goalkeeper who makes a string of saves as well as the obligatory happy ending with the players managing to escape after being swept away by a jubilant crowd. That is the script of Escape to Victory a movie that, more than three decades since its release, remains arguably the finest fictional portrayal of the game of football. It works not because the match action is particularly good (although it is done better than most) but mostly as the story draws on the powerful emotions that sport can foster. The plot itself might not be overly credible yet the idea that sport can deliver hope and instil faith where there seems to be none is totally believable.” Football Pink

“Last week marked the two-year anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. Football clubs and its fans were also deeply impacted by this event, and within one year all three major clubs Tavriya Simferopol, FK Sevastopol, and the lesser-known Zhemchuzhina Yalta had to declare bankruptcy, and were dissolved, later to re-emerge as new clubs that could participate in the Russia football pyramid. These new clubs TSK (Tavriya Simferopol Crimea) Simferopol, SK Chernomorskogo Flota (SKChF) Sevastopol, and Zhemchuzhina Yalta played a handful of games in the third-tier Russian Professional Football League. On August 22, 2014 the UEFA Emergency Panel stated “that any football matches played by Crimean clubs organised under the auspices of the Russian Football Union (RFU) will not be recognised by UEFA until further notice.” The clubs were then disbanded.” Futbolgrad

“We all love a good underdog story. It’s probably why we are all so encapsulated by Leicester City’s brilliant form in the Premiership. Things aren’t too dissimilar in the Ekstraklasa, Poland’s top flight division. An unsatisfactory start to the season by some of the big teams – namely Wisła Kraków & Lech Poznań – combined with an exuberant push from the smaller teams has paved the way for an unlikely leader at the top of the table during the Winter break – Piast Gliwice, who sit five points clear of 2nd placed Legia Warsaw.It all seems hard to believe for the minnows from Gliwice who have spent so many years in the depths of the Polish footballing pyramid.” backpagefootball

“Slurping – the sound that suck calves make when you’re weaning them, or pigs at the trough, or Russians drinking hot tea. It isn’t racism from me, they don’t want to let the tea cool, or be ‘civilized’ and add milk. I was on a platzkart train from Voronezh to Moscow and my neighbours were all having breakfast and slurping tea. I’d fallen asleep just before midnight cheesed off. In the four bunk kupe next to mine a group of relatively well-heeled men and women in their mid-20’s were drinking tea and talking politics. They were liberal and very anti-Putin. Any other time I’d have an interest in their conversation, though when they kept commenting about a family from Tajikistan in the next kupe, I spoke out.” backpagefootball

“This morning I grabbed a coffee with a friend who works with a national championship club here in Russia. In the luxurious surrounds of the McCafe near Kievskaya Station we discussed the impending doom in his club. We’d soldiered together in 2010/11 and, then, at just 25, he was ready for greater things. I recommended him to a position with a Moscow-based club and after only four months he was brought away to a National Championship club to work his magic there. As we drank our cappuccinos he began to tell about a coming bust.” backpagefootball

“While working on a year end review with all the fun of the fair and recovering from a series of dentist appointments, a brilliant article flashed across my LinkedIn page that sent me into uproar. It nudged to restart an article from October which I felt was going to sound too unreal. Thanks to our apparatchiks here in Russia, I needn’t have worried, the unreal just got real again.” backpagefootball

“Last Monday I was at my desk updating a survey I’d carried out at the end of the Summer when, on the Russian search portal Yandex, news flashed up of an incident in Syria. Apparently a Russian plane had been shut down by Turkish forces and the pilot killed. I turned to my colleague Sergey and asked him if I was reading this news right, he shook his head and growled, ‘This is all shit, complete shit’. The facts are still in dispute, the Turks (those same kind folks who imprison dissenting journalists, buy oil from ISIS and allow Syrian Kurds be slaughtered) claim the plane was in their airspace. The Russians (and surviving navigator) contradict this.” backpagefootball

“Today we travel back to 1945, when Croats and Russians played the first football match against each other. Since the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Western world perceived communism as a common enemy and thus that space of the world seemed far away from rest of Europe. At this time, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a part of the Western side, with whom they shared values and beliefs, thus they had not recognized the Soviet Union, and so the interwar period was marked by alienation between the two countries. During the Second World War, the Independent State of Croatia was one of Nazi Germany’s last standing allies, and unlike in the Soviet Union the beautiful game was still played in Zagreb in those dark years.” Russian Football (Video)

“One of the better stories to emerge in the Russian sports media after Chelsea’s exit from the League Cup was a pure floater (in every sense of the word). Poor old Jose Mourinho will be replaced by Leonid Slutsky. Given the vile abuse meted out weekly from English terraces, what they’ll do with a person whose family name is ‘Slutsky’ does not need thinking about on a chilly Moscow morning.” backpagefootball

“The English-speaking football world shone its semi-interested light on Russian football last week, yet, as is the norm, the subjects scrutinised were narrow – ‘The Normal One’, ‘LVG and Roly Poly Rooney’ and many other pressing subjects. The question as to why a league like the RFPL should see its teams be competitive in Europe wasn’t brought up. Rather the Sky-BT-Insert Sponsor Name here League was studiously studied. Wiki searches for players with funny names were de rigeur for pundits.” backpagefootball

“I gave my tickets to last Saturday’s Spartak Moscow – Zenit St. Petersburg showdown to a German friend and his colleague. They were mad to taste something local and, like the vast majority of ‘Western’ residents, never had the chance or initiative to score tickets. I’d an idea to take Timur, but since he’s a Lokomotivnik I figured best not to confuse the child. He’d already started supporting Mayo this August when I took him to Croker. He figured it was okay as they have the same colour shirts of Lokomotiv. Even when pointed out to him the difference between Gaelic Football and Soccer, he simply said ‘Football is football.’ Hard to argue with a child’s logic.” backpagefootball

“… One of the last half-dozen straws that broke my back in the day-to-day grind of sports was what happened to another player with whom I went through the same process. He signed for a D2 Central team and received 20,000rbs on his contract and another 20,000rbs black. As a favour to his Dad I helped him negotiate the deal. He got a break alright, as well as cuts and bruises which left him in a regional hospital for three days. I was in Voronezh and visited him. His story was nothing uncommon. No pay from November and a showdown with the Sports Director in April.” backpagefootball

“The end of the 2014/15 season saw two Russian legends leave their clubs to become free agents. Since returning to Russia from the English Premier League both Andrey Arshavin and Roman Pavlyuchenko have failed to live up to the fans’ expectations, and this summer they both found themselves without clubs as their contracts expired. Now a couple of months later they have the chance to shine for Kuban Krasnodar, with the pair linking up for the first time since August, 2012, when they both played in a friendly for Russia against Côte d’Ivoire, Fabio Capello’s first match in charge after the dissapointing Euro tournament in 2012. Arshavin hasn’t played for the national time since, and Pavlyuchenko retired from international football in 2013.” Russian Football