He didn't take long: Nikolic took the trophy in his first season at the head of CSKA

The CSKA players in the capital's Luzhniki stadium won the Russian Cup for the ninth time in their history. On the first day of summer 2025, they won the Rostov Superfinal — after a 0-0 draw in regular time, the Army team prevailed in a penalty shootout (4:3). How Nikolic took the trophy in his first season at the head of the red and blue, and Igor Akinfeev confirmed his own greatness, is in the Izvestia report.

Football weather

Rostov's 2-1 victory over Spartak in the penultimate stage of the tournament initially put the RFU in a difficult position as the organizer of the Russian Cup. If the country's most important derby between CSKA and Spartak had happened in the Superfinal, the maximum attendance at the Luzhniki stadium would have been ensured in advance. The confrontation between the army and Rostov is still not so bright.

But the organizers managed the impossible — the Luzhniki Stadium was filled almost to capacity. On this Sunday afternoon, people were actively going to the stadium. Moreover, the weather was conducive to this — the heat in the morning with a brief rain two hours before the start of the game. As a result, more than 57 thousand people gathered in the stands.

"The main reason for such a high attendance at the Superfinal is the people who saw the value of this match for themselves, the fans," Kirill Tereshin, director of events at the RFU, told Izvestia. — We are grateful to them. We understand that not everyone was able to get tickets. And I think if our allowed capacity at Luzhniki Stadium was not 57,000 spectators, as at the last match, but 69,000, as at the 2022 Super Final between Spartak and Dynamo, then we could have gathered such an audience at CSKA –Rostov. This is the result of the joint work of the RFU with the media, our commercial partners and the clubs themselves. Last season, CSKA did a good job in terms of media — they implemented many projects in this direction. And Rostov had not played in the Cup final for a long time, which raised the interest of its fans. And overall, the Cup is growing, both in terms of match attendance and TV ratings. We are glad that the interest in the Russian Cup Superfinal does not depend on the signage, on whether there will be a high-profile derby between CSKA and Spartak or a seemingly less high-profile poster in the form of CSKA and Rostov. That's why we've been working for several years, so that the interest in football is such that there is no complete dependence on the status of the opposition.

CSKA had an unsuccessful first half of the season, but after the winter break, it increased dramatically and lost only one official match — the first meeting of the final of the "RPL Way" against Zenit (0:2) on its field. But even this setback was nullified in the second leg at home — then CSKA won with a similar score in regular time, and then prevailed in a penalty shootout (4:3) and advanced to the Superfinal.

In the national championship, the army team rose from sixth place to third place in the spring, winning bronze medals. For a completely positive finish to the season, it remained to win the Russian Cup. Moreover, almost the entire current CSKA squad has experience of success in this tournament — two years ago the team already won this trophy. And her current head coach Marko Nikolic achieved similar success in 2021 at the head of the Moscow "Locomotive".

Rostov has won the Russian Cup only once in its history, in 2014. This season was not easy for him organizationally — at the end of winter, the team lost its long-term captain Danil Glebov, who joined Dynamo Moscow, and long-term head coach Valery Karpin, who officially referred to the need to focus on working with the Russian national team.

Karpin was replaced by his long-time assistant Jonathan Alba. The rest of the coaching staff also remained unchanged. These changes did not lead to a deterioration in the results — the Rostov team confidently finished the championship in the middle of the table in eighth place. And in the Cup we reached the decisive match, which we never managed to do under Karpin.

Since May, there have been rumors in the media about an imminent leadership reshuffle. In particular, Sport-Express wrote about the imminent resignation of Rostov President Artashes Harutyunyanets, sports director Alexei Ryskin, the coaching staff and most of the players. A little later, Ryskin confirmed his impending departure. Thus, the match with CSKA may be the last for Rostov in its current form.

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CSKA fans hung a banner in the stands with the inscription "Bryansk, we are with you!", supporting the victims of last night's disaster in the region, when a road bridge fell on a train passing under it. By the beginning of the match, it was already known that seven people had died.

The game itself, as expected, was held in a pretty tough fight with a small number of moments. At the beginning of the game, CSKA scored — Rostov goalkeeper Rustam Yatimov made a mistake after hitting Ivan Oblyakov, and the ball bounced off the goalkeeper's hands into the gates of the Don club. But after watching the video replay for a long time, the main referee of the match, Kirill Levnikov, canceled the goal due to offside during one of the previous passes. In the future, the teams played very carefully with an eye on their own goal, almost without creating chances ahead.

Both halves started with the territorial advantage of CSKA, but then Rostov gradually moved the game away from its gates. Interestingly, the first shot on target by one of the teams occurred only in the 75th minute of the match.

During the break, the winners of the "Russia is a Football Country" competition were awarded. The RFU conducts it to find and encourage initiatives aimed at developing football in the regions. The awards were given to people who, on their own initiative, organized a number of tournaments, amateur teams, corporate football competitions, a tournament for students and an adaptive football section for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The awards were presented by head coach of the Russian national team Valery Karpin, national team player Danil Glebov, Stanislav Agkatsev, Andrey Mostovoy and Ivan Sergeev, who are preparing for the upcoming friendly match against Nigeria on June 6, which will be held at the same Luzhniki Stadium.

And the decisive game of the Russian Cup monotonously reached the end of regular time, and then to the penalty shootout.

The first shot from Rostov's Khoren Baghramyan hit the post. Yatimov managed to restore priority by beating off Igor Diveev's second CSKA strike. But immediately, the army goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev deflected Alexey Sutormin's shot with an incredible save. There were no further misfires, and CSKA won the Russian Cup for the ninth time.

"The emotions from the victory are the most indescribable — we are glad that we ended the season on such a note," CSKA midfielder Danil Krugovoy told Izvestia. — Everyone worked for this success, they really wanted to win the Cup of Russia. Everyone in the team did everything to win. And we are happy that we have brought such joyful moments to our fans this season and in the last match as well.

CSKA has equaled Lokomotiv Moscow in terms of the number of trophies won — both now have nine Russian Football Cups in their club museums.