Winter dispute: RPL clubs will play a tournament in the Emirates
Four top Russian clubs will play in the RPL Winter Cup in the first half of February, one of the main events of the winter break in our football season. The tournament will be held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where its participants — Krasnodar, Zenit, CSKA and Dynamo — will test their readiness for the crucial spring part of the championship and the Cup of Russia.
Krasnodar
Last spring, the Bulls became champions of Russia for the first time in their history. Having retained almost the entire squad and significantly strengthened, they successfully held the first part of the current championship. Krasnodar took the lead for the winter break, but the gap from Zenit, which occupies the second line, after 18 rounds is only one point.
Murad Musaev's team also continues to compete in the Russian Cup, where they will face two semi-final matches of the RPL Path against CSKA in March. If successful, the southern club will have to get the better of two more rivals before the trophy.
This winter, Krasnodar is still passive in the transfer market. On the eve of the start of the RPL Winter Cup, midfielder Gaetan Perrin left the club and joined French side Lille. He stayed in the ranks of the Russian champion for only six months, having come in the summer from Auxerre, whose leader he had been for several years. That move was considered one of the most high-profile transfers to the RPL from Europe in recent years. But in the end, the French midfielder could not win the competition from the competitors and went back to Ligue 1.
Krasnodar has not made any transfers to the entrance this winter. The transfer of Juan Boselli, the best scorer of Paris Nizhny Novgorod, was considered the closest in early January, but after a month, the Uruguayan striker is still in the Nizhny Novgorod team and is training with them at the training camp in Turkey.
The team itself continues to retain the key players of the championship season — striker John Cordoba, attacking midfielder Eduard Spertsyan, defensive midfielder Alexander Chernikov, goalkeeper Stanislav Agkatsev and many others.
— The team is systematically preparing for the second part of the season, without forcing the set of forms, but also without delaying it, — Maxim Demenko, a former Krasnodar midfielder, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — Now that the club has won the RPL gold and is leading this season, the main thing is the stability of the squad and the entire system. It's there. At the Winter Cup, you can test your strength in matches against strong opponents, make adjustments to the game and confidently spend the last weeks of preparation in order to immediately take the initiative in the championship.
Zenit
Having lost the championship last year after six years of hegemony in the Russian Premier League, the St. Petersburg club is trying hard to return to the top. He breathes into the leader's back, but at the same time he rebuilds on the move. So, in January, Zenit parted ways with two strikers — Matteo Cassierra and Luciano Gonda. The former returned to South America, and the latter was traded to CSKA for central defender Igor Diveev. So far, only Alexander Sobolev remains among Zenit's leading players in attack.
In addition, the Blues sold midfielder Gerson back to Brazil. He joined Zenit in the summer, but he never played. Given the heavy spending on him, this player could have been the club's biggest transfer failure in many years, but Peter returned, if not all, then most of the money spent by selling to Cruzeiro. At the same time, he acquired another Brazilian attacking midfielder, John John, from overseas.
In addition to the championship, Zenit continues to compete in the Cup. However, he had already dropped out of the "RPL Path" there. But he retains the chance to win the trophy through the "Path of the Regions", where he will have an away match with Kaliningrad Baltika in March.
—Perestroika is logical, since not all the foreign players met the expectations properly and fulfilled the funds invested in them," Anatoly Byshovets, former Zenit head coach, said in a conversation with Izvestia. — It was logical to exchange Gonda for Diveev, who for many years was one of the leaders of CSKA, a player of the Russian national team. He has character and enough skill to help win the RPL gold. Whereas Gonda hasn't been in the squad for a long time. And Diveev will add quality to Zenit both in defense and at the standards at other people's gates, where he scored a lot of goals. As for Gerson, he clearly did not fit into the team, so it's good that they managed to sell him profitably. And Cassierra also slowed down after a very productive season for himself the year before last.
CSKA
The Army team won the Russian Cup and the bronze medals of the national championship last season, but unexpectedly lost their head coach Marko Nikolic. The Serb did not agree on a new contract with CSKA and left for the Greek AEK. Swiss Fabio Celestini, who was invited to take his place in an emergency, is still living up to expectations. In the summer, he won the Russian Super Cup, and then successfully completed almost the entire first part of the season.
It was only closer to the winter break that there was a drawdown due to the insufficiently wide range of players. Therefore, CSKA went on a break in fourth place in the championship. But he is only four points behind the leader, with whom he will also play in the Cup.
Meanwhile, in January, even before training camp, Celestini received a solid reinforcement — he was exchanged for Diveev Gonda to solve the problem with the attack that plagued the team for most of the summer and autumn. And Dmitry Barinov, a long-term captain and trainee of the railroad workers, who was stolen from Lokomotiv, is likely to strengthen the midfield.
—Barinov will definitely strengthen the army team — he is one of the best RPL players in his role, plus he has real leadership qualities, which is important for the fight for the championship,— former CSKA midfielder Dmitry Khomukha told Izvestia. — There is doubt about Diveev's exchange for Gonda. Igor's departure, at least for the first time, will weaken the team's defense, although this can be leveled later. But I don't see how the Argentine will solve the problem of attacking. Yes, he was productive at Zenit a year and a half ago, when he first came there. But then he slowed down and, not by chance, ended up in a dead reserve. So it's a risky transfer. And at the training camp, in matches against strong teams, it will be interesting to see how well he fits into the game.
Dynamo
Dynamo Moscow is spending the first month of training under the leadership of a new staff — head coach Rolan Gusev and his assistants Yuri Zhirkov and Roman Sharonov. In January, they already played one tournament in the Emirates, where they faced two Chinese clubs, Shanghai Shenhua and Chengdu Rongchen. Both matches ended in a draw and penalty shootouts, the first of which Dynamo lost, the second won.
Brazilian blue and White rookie defender David Ricardo is scheduled to make his debut at the Winter Cup. It will be there that it will be possible to understand to a much greater extent what kind of football Dynamo will play under Gusev, who took over the team in 10th place in the championship and in the spring will try to raise it closer to the leaders, as well as win the National Cup, in the semifinals of which the team will play twice against Moscow in March. "Spartak".
—Gusev took over the team in a very difficult position," Sergei Silkin, former Dynamo head coach, told Izvestia. — She completely failed in the first part of the season, at least she went further in the Cup and retains her chances of winning the trophy. But the new coaching staff still has a lot of work to do. And we will now see the first results at the Winter Cup.
The matches of the RPL Winter Cup will be held in Abu Dhabi on February 3, 6 and 10. The spring part of the season will begin at the end of February.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
