Khimki experiment: in what condition the Moscow region club will go to St. Petersburg
The main event of the week in the Russian Football Championship was the collapse in Khimki. After the resignation of head coach Frank Artiga, the club, which is already experiencing financial problems, faced a boycott of the main squad players who refused to train until their salary arrears were paid. It is possible that because of this, the reserve team will go to the away match against Zenit St. Petersburg. While the competitors of the club from the Northern capital in the fight for gold medals will face more difficult games. Read more about the upcoming matches of the 25th round of the Russian Premier League in the Izvestia article.
Zenit – Khimki
On Tuesday, April 15, Khimki announced the resignation of their head coach Frank Artiga. Few people were surprised by this decision, given that the Moscow region club has consistently entertained the public over the past five years with constant changes of coaches and managers, sometimes despite positive sports results. The last such case was the summer dismissal of Andrei Talalaev, who returned the team to the RPL from the first league. Then it was due to disagreements between the coach and the management regarding the transfer policy.
Spaniard Franck Artiga, who replaced him, lasted a very long time for this club — almost 10 months. And it even seemed that they would let him finish the season, as he managed to give a good result with chronic lack of money. Since the end of last year, the players have not been paid salaries, even in winter there were rumors in the media that Khimki might not finish the championship. However, they not only entered the spring part of the season, but also won two matches against their direct competitors in the fight for survival — Voronezh Fakel (1:0) and Pari Nizhny Novgorod (2:0). And with another direct competitor, Akhmat Grozny, they played a 1-1 draw at home.
This gave a very good start in the race for the right to stay in the RPL. He lost a little bit after two defeats in the last rounds — from Dynamo Makhachkala (0:4) and Krylia Sovetov Samara (1:3). But even after them, Khimki manages to stay in 12th place, outside the zone of transitional matches. Akhmat, which is located in it, scored an equal number of points with the Moscow region club, but is inferior to them in personal meetings. Khimki has a gap of eight points from the direct relegation zone.
Hence Artiga's resignation raised big questions. According to the website Championat.com The discontent of the main investor of Khimki, Tufan Sadygov, was caused by the fact that at a press conference after the match with Krylia, the Spanish coach publicly supported his players demanding to start paying off debts. In addition, the publication claims that the actual owner of the team was unhappy with the insufficient playing time given to his son— striker Ilya Sadygov.
On the day of Artiga's resignation, Sport-Express reported that the Khimki players did not agree with the coach's dismissal and boycotted the training session: they symbolically entered the gym and left it 10 minutes later. The next day, Khimki announced the appointment of Magomed Adiev, the former coach of Anzhi Makhachkala, Akhmat Grozny and the national team of Kazakhstan, as acting head coach.
He already had experience of high-quality work in conditions of lack of money, when in the 2018/19 season he fought for survival for a long time and kept his chances of being saved from relegation from the Anzhi RPL, where wages were not paid for almost a year. A year ago, he saved Akhmat from relegation, but the Grozny club had no financial problems.
Now the situation is much more complicated, as the players of the main squad are still boycotting training sessions, holding classes separately from the new coaching staff. And Adiev works with the youth team. Tufan Sadygov, in an interview with Sport-Express, did not rule out that it was the youth team that would go to St. Petersburg for the match with Zenit, which, after a crushing victory over the leading Krasnodar (4:1) in the last round, was only two points behind the first place.
— Regardless of which team Khimki will play in St. Petersburg, it is clear that Zenit should win easily, — Andrey Chervichenko, former vice-president of the Moscow Region club, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — Even if they persuade the base to enter the field and pay them at least part of their debts, then all the hassle of this week will have an impact. Despite it, it is still possible to score points in matches with teams from the bottom of the table, but not with such a leader as Zenit. Here you can only throw up your hands and wonder how Khimki managed to once again bring the situation to such a farce — there is no money, at the same time there is a desire to play in the RPL, sign good football players of the level of Anton Zabolotny, Georgy Dzhikiya and many others. You need to live within your means and match your ambitions with your opportunities. Then maybe you won't end up in the RPL, but there won't be such a circus with debts, about which there are still questions for the league and the RFU, who allowed a club with such problems to compete.
Akron – Spartak
Dzyuba joined Akron in early September and has already played twice with his team against Spartak. In the autumn, the Tolyatti team was defeated by the red and white with a score of 4.:0. And in March, they met with Spartak at home in the Russian Cup. The club from the Samara region was able to resist the favorite, and Dzyuba even scored a goal against his former team, but in the end Spartak won 3-2 and went on.
—Spartak looks like the favorite in this contest and must win if it wants to continue fighting for gold," Andrei Chervichenko, the former owner of the Red and white team, said in a conversation with Izvestia. — Akron looks quite decent on its own this season, and Dzyuba has added the necessary experience to the team. She can take away points from anyone, although I don't think Spartak will repeat such a misfire twice in a row, as with Makhachkala. He has the motivation and anger to rehabilitate himself for this defeat. And the players will do everything to win.
Krasnodar – Akhmat
In March, these teams already played on Krasnodar's home field as part of the Russian Cup. Then Akhmat scored a strong-willed victory (2:1) and knocked the Bulls out of the tournament. He himself crashed out of the Cup this week, losing to Moscow's Lokomotiv (1:2). At the same time, the head coach of the team, Sergey Tashuev, saved part of the main squad, so we can expect the Grozny team to resist Krasnodar again within the framework of the championship.
Akhmat is the main opening of the spring season. He entered it, being in the penultimate place. But I have never lost in the RPL in 2025, and together with the Cup, the defeat against Loko was the first in official matches. Together with the December championship games, the Chechen team has not lost in the tournament for eight matches in a row.
This allowed her to significantly break away from the relegation zone, but not get out of the transition zone, which Akhmat will try to do in the coming rounds. For Krasnodar, this match will be important in terms of testing their championship ambitions. Murad Musayev's team continues to lead, but the crushing defeat by Zenit raises the question of how ready it is for the battle for gold in the remaining rounds.
"We won a very good and bright victory over Krasnodar in the Cup due to successful substitutions made by the coach," Akhmat defender Miroslav Bogosavats told Izvestia. — Then Berisha entered the field in the second half, scoring two goals. I don't know who will start the upcoming match against Krasnodar in the championship. But we have enough good players to resist the RPL leader. And we will try to defeat him again. Moreover, we need it to get out of the joint zone and solve the problem of staying in the Premier League.
CSKA Moscow – Krylia Sovetov
The Samara club is very unstable this season, and the change of leadership and harsh statements addressed to the team, the head coach and a number of managers by the governor of the region Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, which became the main hit of Russian football at the end of last year, made many people think that Krylia is the first candidate for relegation.
But Igor Osinkin's team is holding on quite confidently in the middle of the table. They had a disastrous March, after which the regional leadership again held a public meeting with the team. This caused a mixed reaction from the football community, but it has produced results — since then, the Wings have scored seven points out of a possible nine in the last three rounds. And they are in 11th place with a margin of three points from the transition zone and 11 points from the relegation zone.
Now they have to visit the most successful team of the spring. Having started after the winter break with an away draw with Zenit (0-0), CSKA has not lost points since then — it has won five consecutive league victories and will try to win a sixth this weekend. In addition, this week the Army team drew away with Dynamo Moscow (0:0) in the second leg of the semi—final of the "RPL Path" of the Russian Cup and, thanks to their victory in the first game (2:1), reached the finals of this tournament bracket - the penultimate stage of the Cup, where they will play two matches withZenit." And CSKA, thanks to a winning streak, came close to the top three, equaling Spartak on points. The gap from the leading Krasnodar is five points.
There will also be four more matches in the upcoming 25th round. Dynamo Moscow will host Rubin Kazan. Moscow's Lokomotiv will play at home against Pari Nizhny Novgorod. Orenburg will face Dynamo Makhachkala at home. And the Voronezh "Torch" is waiting for a home confrontation with Rostov.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
