Translated material
League of Sub-Champions
In Russia they again started talking about the low level of our championship. The euphoria from the victories of CSKA and Zenit in the UEFA Cup, which has now become the Europa League, as well as the team’s third place at last year’s European Championship temporarily deprived fans and football officials of an adequate perception of Russian club football. The current European Cup campaign can provide some sobering insight.
Already at the group stage of the Europa League (read: in the 1/32 finals according to the old rules), there was not a single Russian team left, and the capital’s Dynamo and Zenit lost to clubs that were both significantly poorer and weaker in composition. The start of Russian clubs in the group stage of the Champions League was even more revealing. The champion and clear leader of the current championship, Rubin Kazan, together with our most stable club of the last decade, CSKA, did not just lose to Dynamo Kyiv and the German Wolfsburg. They outright, in terms of class, lost to teams from two championships, which we had unofficially decided to look up to.
Ukraine has become the subject of football comparisons as the second strongest football power in the post-Soviet space, and Germany as the country of the best “second-tier” national championship in Europe (the first row consists of the championships of England, Spain and Italy). It was precisely to the level of the Bundesliga (or the French championship, comparable to the German one) that they actually tried to raise the Russian championship.
Before last year’s “Hiddink miracle,” the successes of our team were significantly inferior to the achievements of the Ukrainian team, which reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Of course, the Ukrainian championship as a whole is weaker than the Russian one. In Ukrainian football, only Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kyiv have significant money, and the total number of clubs is inferior in capabilities to the teams of the Russian Premier League. But at the same time, the flagships of Ukrainian football in recent years have invariably turned out to be stronger than the leading Russian teams - Shakhtar beat CSKA in last year's last UEFA Cup, Dynamo Kiev simply defeated Spartak in the Champions League qualification. And the latest match of the Kazan “Rubin” in Kyiv showed a real difference in class, and not just in the readiness of the teams - the champions of the two countries - for a separate game.
“Wolfsburg” was also a good test of the level of our championship, since the flagship of German club football, “Bavaria”, which is experiencing internal problems, is objectively head and shoulders above all other German teams, much like hockey CSKA in Soviet times. But Wolfsburg, which won the German championship for the first time in its history and largely due to the troubles of its competitors, turned out to be significantly stronger than the Moscow army team. Moreover, it is stronger even in composition.
After the match between CSKA and Wolfsburg, I remembered an interview that the former central defender of Spartak, Macedonian Igor Mitreski, gave relatively recently. He stated that even the second Bundesliga, where he played then, was stronger than the main Russian division. If we take the level of all the teams in these leagues, I’m afraid Mitreski did not greatly sin against the truth.
The Russian Championship has not been developing in terms of the level of football in recent years. We have few teams with money and ambitions. But to call the “Big Four” in the image and likeness of the English “Big Four”: Manchester United - Liverpool - Chelsea - Arsenal, our Rubin - Spartak - CSKA - Zenit ” or adding “Lokomotiv” there somehow makes no sense. No one demonstrates stability at the international level, without which there are no big clubs. It is not for nothing that in recent years not a single Russian team has been able to reach the group stage of the Champions League, which is a true criterion of the strength of the national championship.
Russia still produces quality football players from time to time. And the presence of our foreign players after a long break in decent teams of stronger national championships is a good trend. But the feeling that Andrei Arshavin, Pavel Pogrebnyak and even Roman Pavlyuchenko, who mostly sits on the bench of London Tottenham, would clearly degrade if they remained in our championship, does not leave. So it is important for Russia not only to honestly assess its place in European club football, but also, if possible, to try to use the now ending “Hiddink era” as a time to build the foundation for the qualitative strengthening of club football. Teams with frankly weak club football do not win the World Championships and the Champions League.