Russian Football Betting: Plenty of changes going into the new season

European Leagues / Jonathan Wilson / 11 March 2010 / Leave a Comment

Luciano Spalletti is the new coach of Zenit St Petersburg

"Quite what Zenit have done to be so favoured is unclear. They have stuck with their recent tradition of foreign coaches, replacing Dick Advocaat with the former Roma coach Luciano Spalletti. That he is capable of overachieving on a limited budget has been proven, but Russian football is littered with the reputations of coaches who have
failed to adapt to local conditions, and it may be that this for him
is a season of learning."

On the eve of the start of the new Russian season, Jonathan Wilson tells us what's been going on in the off-season with a few new arrivals and plenty of financial problems looming over most of the teams.

The Russian season begins on Friday, as CSKA host Amkar Perm (CSKA [1.53]; Amkar [8.6]), but the usual optimism of spring is notably absent this season. FK Moskva have already gone out of business after the withdrawal of their sponsors, Norilsk Nikel, and Krylya Sovetov's players are threatening to boycott Saturday's game against the title
favourites Zenit St Petersburg in a protest over unpaid wages and bonuses.

It is believed the squad is owed a total of $15million, with some payments still owed from 2008, while the coach Yuri Gazzaev - the cousin of the Dynamo Kyiv coach Valeri Gazzaev - has reportedly not been paid at all since taking over at the club last year. The club is still operating under a transfer ban which, with the deadline passing on Wednesday, means they go into the new season with a demoralised and disillusioned team and no new blood whatsoever.

The experienced Czechs, Jan Koller and Jiri Jarosik, have both left, and two loan signings who had a significant impact last season, the forward Roman Adamov and the full-back Roman Shishkin, have gone, as have three talented midfielders. The winger Vladislav Ignatyev managed to get the courts to annul his contract and he has joined Lokomotiv, who under the wise guidance of Yuri Semin could be dark horses this season; the Belarusian winger Timofei Kalachev has gone to Rostov; and the highly promising Yevgeny Pesegov has joined Nizhny Novgorod. Leilton, the Brazilian full-back, completes the list of those who got so sick of playing for nothing that they left.

Yet it could be worse. But for the personal intervention of Vladimir Putin, who insisted the country's energy companies find a way to fund the club's $30m a year budget, they would have gone out of business. He stepped in similarly to save Tom Tomsk last season - which raises the question of why he did not do similarly when FK Moskva were in crisis - but the fact that such interventions are necessary speak of the precarious state of Russian football. According to Deloitte - who acknowledge their figures are estimates as full auditing is not always possible - all sixteen top-flight clubs made a loss last season, and most could not exist without the patronage of either an energy or commodities company, or the local municipality.

Quite what Zenit have done to be so favoured is unclear. They have stuck with their recent tradition of foreign coaches, replacing Dick Advocaat with the former Roma coach Luciano Spalletti. That he is capable of overachieving on a limited budget has been proven, but Russian football is littered with the reputations of coaches who have failed to adapt to local conditions, and it may be that this for him is a season of learning.

That said, their winter transfer dealings - the forwards Alexander Kerzhakov and Danko Lazovic, the goalkeeper Yuri Zhevnov and the promising Danish full-back Michael Lumb have come in; the midfielder Igor Semshov has left - are as impressive as anybody's, and their squad certainly looks stronger than last season.

Kurban Berdyev's Rubin Kazan, champions for the last two seasons, will be strong again, although whether the Turkish striker Fatih Tekke, their major winter signing, has the dash adequately to compensate for the loss of Alejandro Dominguez is doubtful. Still, their 1-0 victory over CSKA in the Super Cup last Sunday shows they still have a basic
defensive coherence that will make them hard to dislodge. Their game against Loko is probably the pick of the weekend's matches ([Rubin [2.14]; Loko [3.55]).

Spartak, with the young side that did so well last term after a disappointing start last season, will also be a threat, and have added another Brazilian, Ari, to the combination of Alex and Welliton who performed so well last season. CSKA, meanwhile, after all the upheaval of last season as Zico gave way to Juande Ramos who gave way to Leonid
Slutsky, have a promising and uncompromising young coach who should ensure a measure of solidity. "We need to build a new team, which only a Russian manager can do," said the club's owner Evgeny Giner. "Our trust in Slutsky is as big as our enthusiasm about the club's prospects."

If only Krylya could say the same.