Foggy champion: the RPL expects a tight fight for gold and the preservation of registration

The Russian Premier League returns on February 27 after the winter break. Like several previous seasons, the championship is full of intrigue. Five clubs are competing for gold medals at once, and at the bottom of the standings, at least five teams will face a tough fight for the right to avoid relegation to the First League. There are 12 rounds left in the spring part.

Who is the favorite of the RPL championship race

Last year's national champion Krasnodar has a good chance of repeating its success. According to the results of 18 rounds, the Bulls are in first place. They hardly changed their squad during the winter transfer window. Juan Boselli, the Uruguayan leader of Pari Nizhny Novgorod, was acquired in the attack. But he will most likely be used as a reserve for the main star of the team, John Cordoba. Midfielders Danila Kozlov and Gaetan Perrin left the southern club, but they were not players of the main squad.

"The club has retained both the squad and the style of play that helped it win gold,— former Krasnodar midfielder Maxim Demenko said in a conversation with Izvestia. — At the same time, the players have already gained enough confidence to pass the spring part smoothly and avoid the stupid point losses that happened to them before. This makes the Bulls, if not the favorites, then definitely one of the main contenders for the championship.

Zenit St. Petersburg is one point behind Krasnodar. Last spring, his long—term hegemony in the RPL was interrupted - six consecutive championships. And now the residents of St. Petersburg are trying to return to their usual place. However, in the first part of the season, Sergey Semak's team had a lot of problems with the game and the results.

In the winter, the team went into perestroika. In January, she parted ways with two strikers, Matteo Cassierra and Luciano Gondu. The latter was traded to CSKA for central defender Igor Diveev. Midfielder Gerson, who had not gained a foothold in six months, was sold back to Brazil. Serbian defender Strahinja Erakovic has gone on loan to Crvena Zvezda Belgrade. In February, Zenit acquired Brazilian attacking midfielder John John and leased Colombian striker John Duran until the end of the season.

— The question is how quickly Semak will be able to integrate newcomers into the squad, — Anatoly Byshovets, former Zenit head coach, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — Both star newcomers arrived in the middle of training camps, they may not have time to fully understand the game concept of the team and establish mutual understanding with other players. At the same time, Semak had already encountered such a problem. Back in his first season at Zenit, Serdar Azmun, Yaroslav Rakitsky and Wilmar Barrios joined the club before the spring part of the championship. All three of them immediately joined the team and helped to win gold. The question now is whether Zenit has enough motivation to play to the limit of their abilities. This team has the potential to regain the championship, but there are still problems with its implementation.

Premiers in the league: how the RPL leaders strengthened before the fight for the championship

Zenit and CSKA have confirmed their ambitions, Krasnodar have a short bench again, Lokomotiv and Spartak believe in the current squads

Back in the fall, the transfer epic began with the captain of Lokomotiv, Dmitry Barinov, whose contract expired in the summer of 2026. The railwaymen tried to negotiate with one of their key players, but the negotiations failed. Many fans blamed the failure on the former CEO of the club, Valery Leonchenko. In November, Boris Rotenberg replaced him in this post, but he could not keep the Loko pupil either.

In January, Barinov joined CSKA Moscow, which was initially the main contender for the 29-year-old midfielder. As Vladimir Kuzmichev, Barinov's representative, told Sport-Express, the player promised the army men to join their ranks even before the change of the CEO of Lokomotiv.

The Railwaymen were only able to achieve the maximum possible compensation for a player who would have left as a free agent in the summer. According to media reports, it amounted to €2 million. Loko itself limited itself to acquiring Argentine midfielder Lucas Vera in the winter. In previous seasons, he performed brilliantly in the RPL, being the leader of Orenburg and Khimki. Lokomotiv is three points behind the leading Krasnodar.

"The loss of Barinov is quite serious, but in recent years, Lokomotiv has proved that it can successfully replace leaders," Nikolai Naumov, former president of Railwaymen, told Izvestia. — Maxim Glushenkov left for Zenit before last season, but Alexey Batrakov opened up. Currently, Loko's potential is insufficient to fight for the championship, but it is quite capable of finishing in the top three.

CSKA is fourth in the league and four points behind the leader. In winter, the "Army" had the most successful transfer campaign of all the RPL clubs. In addition to acquiring Barinov and Kozlov, Gonda has also been signed, which should solve the problem with the attack that plagued Fabio Celestini's wards in the first part of the season. In addition, Brazilian defender Mateus Reis has arrived. Before the start of the spring season, CSKA may sign star Brazilian midfielder Philippe Coutinho, the 2019/2020 Champions League winner with Bayern Munich. In addition to the German club, the 33-year-old played for Inter, Liverpool and Barcelona in the 2010s.

In January, there were also changes in the coaching staff of the red and blue. Alexey Berezutsky, who was responsible for standards under Celestini, left him, and last season he helped Marko Nikolic, with whom the team won the bronze medal of the championship and the Cup of Russia. In the 2021/22 season, Berezutsky was the head coach of CSKA, and in 2002-2018 he played for it as a defender, winning six championships, six Cups and the UEFA Cup.

— Speaking globally, even not this year, CSKA has not had a good striker for a long time, — Alexey Berezutsky told Izvestia. — We are all waiting for what will happen now. We don't know yet if Luciano will score goals all the time. I hope it will be. But a high—scoring central striker has long been the club's main problem. I hope it will be resolved with this transfer. As for Barinov, we missed him 100%. He is a leader and a great football player.

Kaliningrad's Baltika has become one of the main RPL sensations of recent years. Having moved from the First League to the Premier League last season, Andrei Talalaev's team immediately began to steadily gain points, play on equal terms with top clubs, and eventually left for the winter fifth, five points behind Krasnodar. During the break, they lost only midfielder Vladislav Saus, who was sold to Spartak Moscow, so they may well continue to fight for medals.

The struggle for survival

Sochi, which is last, is 5 points behind 14th place (occupied by Paris NN) and 8 points behind 12th place (currently occupied by Samara Wings of the Soviets).

According to the regulations, the last two teams leave the RPL directly. Those who took the 13th and 14th places will fight for the preservation of registration in the elite with the third and fourth teams of the First League. Currently, Dynamo Makhachkala and Pari Nizhny Novgorod are in the transition zone.

Akron Togliatti, Dynamo Moscow and Rostov lost by six points from the transition zone (13th place), Akhmat Grozny by seven, Rubin Kazan by eight, who replaced the head coach in the winter (Frank Artiga replaced Rashid Rakhimov).

Spartak, which is sixth, is completely stuck in the middle of the table — 12 points away from the joint zone, six points behind Baltika, which closes the top five, and 11 from Krasnodar, which is leading. The new head coach appointed in January, Spaniard Juan Carlos Carcedo, is called upon to correct the situation.

"I don't think Spartak will be able to improve anything over the spring," Andrei Chervichenko, the former owner of the Red and White, stressed in a conversation with Izvestia. — First of all, a new coach from abroad, and not the strongest one, who will spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the squad is, and it is very diverse — players have been bought very haphazardly in recent years. Spring is definitely not enough to put it all together.

"Not everyone will make it to the national team. Life is ruthless, and guys realize it."

Ivan Shabarov, senior coach of the youth team, talks about the main talents of the Russian Premier League, our Manchester United and Betis teams, and our readiness to lift sanctions.

As a result, according to Chervichenko, Spartak players will only be able to squeeze Baltika if it starts a crisis. At the same time, a heated struggle will unfold at the bottom of the table, the outcome of which is difficult to predict.

— As for the fight for survival, it will be led by the last five teams. But it's not clear how it's going to end, because all five participants could have changed a lot over the winter," said the former Spartak owner. — Makhachkala changed their coach in the winter, Sochi and Orenburg did it back in the fall, and their coaches have only now been able to rebuild the teams according to their vision. The coaches have been working at Nizhny Novgorod and Krylia since the beginning of the season, but their squads have been updated a lot in the summer, and it was only this winter that they had the opportunity to properly train with them. So the fight for survival is a lottery with a very unpredictable ending.

The last 30th round of the Russian Football Championship this season is scheduled for May 17.