The Bulls are first, but the wind is blowing from the Baltika

Brief results of the summer-autumn-winter part of the Russian Football Premier League season

Over the course of just over five months, fans of the most lawless and predictable of all European championships saw 144 performances, which were completed in 18 rounds. But remembering something truly excitingly interesting is difficult. And it’s good that the question of the championship remains open.

...If you look at the standings, it seems that everything is very sweet and smooth. Like in the advertisement with the famous chocolate bar. The first five teams are in a fairly tight group. The leading Krasnodar has 40 points, and the last peloton, Baltika, has 35. And between them are Zenit (39), Lokomotiv (37) and CSKA (36). In such a close intricacy of the southern and various northern elements, of course, there is a mysterious plot. But the fans who have come to terms with Fan ID and go to stadiums want, above all, action-packed and amazing plays. And they just didn’t happen. Although football players do not suffer from salary delays. But on the field there is mostly sad suffering. Especially those who were expected to fight for the highest places rolled cotton wool instead of a ball.

“Dynamo” and “Spartak”, for example, walked on a terribly parallel course. Watching the efforts of the country's oldest teams was as unbearably difficult as tying your shoelaces in the morning after breaking the rules. Lazy people who earn millions of euros a year couldn’t do anything good, either in attack or defense, even for at least one month. And even those journalists who still saw Lev Yashin and Igor Netto in action did not understand what Valery Karpin and Dejan Stankovic wanted to achieve from their charges in terms of style and philosophy. But all, excuse me, the transfer wishes of both the curly-haired and bald dreamers were fulfilled (“Dynamo” forked out 21 million euros for new magicians; and “Spartak” under the Serb spent as much as 83.58 million euros, or 2.7 billion rubles, on actors in spats). But neither one nor the other was able to play a clear game of solitaire with expensive jokers. And almost simultaneously, in November, the unprincipled designers of both clubs were naturally fired. Moreover, Karpin, as he himself admitted, could not cope with combining two posts. Like, he thought that simultaneously coaching Dynamo and the Russian national team in the capital would be much easier for him than controlling Rostov and the national team (let me remind you that for three years Valery Georgievich pulled off a double trick while living in the south). And how can I comment on this? According to this Karpin logic, training (without leaving the cash register) Real Madrid and the Red Fury is generally a piece of cake... But seriously, it’s very sad that a helmsman with a similar approach to the profession remains in the national team. In the end, the national squad will someday return to the European arena, but what it will be like there after a long pause is not difficult to imagine.

Dynamo, who have not yet improved their position without Karpin, will probably have a difficult time in the second part of the season: they are in close proximity to the play-off zone and risk dropping to the first league... Well, for Spartak, which ended the segment with a boring draw just with Dynamo, there is practically no intrigue in the championship: they are not threatened with relegation, but even before the bronze medals, given the lag of 8 points from the third places they are unlikely to reach.

But Lokomotiv may well compete for a serious award in the spring. The railway workers, who scored 37 points, turned out to be one of the most unyielding teams of the season (only one defeat in 18 matches).

Alexey Batrakov and the company under the leadership of Mikhail Galaktionov acted, albeit not always with inspiration, but harmoniously and effectively. And if they had taken, as they say, all their points, they would probably be in the lead now.

However, the red-greens, who scored 39 goals (the best result among all clubs), missed out on the “chickens” in three autumn meetings with outsiders.

The red-blues, under the new Swiss coach Fabio Celestini, marched in general as confidently as their Cherkizov countrymen. And in terms of uncompromisingness (only three draws), CSKA had no equal during the period from July to December. Young and perky army players (Kirill Glebov, Matvey Kislyak, Danil Krugovoy, Ivan Oblyakov), who improvised from the heart and soul, tried to seek happiness first of all at someone else's goal. They lacked stability - and this is natural - but they deserve the kindest words for their will to win. And fans probably have no complaints about them.

Even their most devoted fans still have questions about Zenit. Two-thirds of the Latin American “gang” of Sergei Semak resembled an uncontrollable cart that creaked terribly and slowed down in front of almost every obstacle. Either from fear, or from reluctance to get involved in battle. And according to the game, Zenit should now be in the middle of the table, but the St. Petersburg luck has not gone away. The motley chicks of Gazprom's nest, swollen from the euro, miraculously got out even in completely failed matches. And Sergei Semak started talking about the necessary reinforcement. Although where can Alexey Miller’s favorite team strengthen?! No, of course, it’s not forbidden to buy another bunch of landsknechts for Christmas with people’s money. But the fans are pretty tired of looking at a gathering of foreign tourists... Of the foreign players, the only one who deserves kind words is the Brazilian Nino, who in two years, as promised, learned Russian and is already giving wonderful (no jokes) interviews in it.

The main player who irritated the public, Artem Dzyuba, stopped joking. But he continues to act fearlessly and rewrite his own records.

Let me remind you that in March the Akron forward scored his 234th career goal into the net, surpassing Alexander Kerzhakov and becoming the top scorer in Russian football. In May, he hit his 240th jumper and looked set to retire comfortably this summer. But no. This season, the 37-year-old captain has already scored 9 points (5+4) in the goal+pass system in 16 matches, and the orchestra from Togliatti is in 9th position, above Valery Karpin’s former teams Dynamo and Rostov.

And on the top line - and deservedly so - is last year's champion Krasnodar. Although the Bulls suffered two defeats, they were the only ones to win 12 victories. The Black-Greens, to be honest, are also full of foreign agents. But in terms of motivation, comrades with multi-colored passports - Colombian John Cordoba, Brazilians Douglas Augusto and Victor Sa, Uruguayan Lucas Olasa and Portuguese Joao Batchi - will give a head start to their colleagues from Zenit. Both the Varangians and the aborigines fulfill all the requirements of Murad Musaev from start to finish, while maneuvering in a variety of tactical ways. And they try to squeeze the maximum out of every fragment of the game: for example, the courageous and balanced “bulls” scored nine goals after corner kicks. But Krasnodar’s best, whatever one may say, is Eduard Spertsyan: he elegantly assisted his partners twelve times and impressively hit the target himself eight times.

However, the main sensation and opening of the first part of the season should be recognized as “Baltika”. The whole thing. An expert who, before the start of the championship, would have suggested that only six teams would be able to score against Kaliningrad would probably be considered crazy. Even the most notorious optimist could not predict that Baltika would concede only 7 (!) goals in 18 matches. But Vladimir Zhirinovsky could not have predicted that the team of 53-year-old Andrei Talalaev would not lose to Zenit, Krasnodar, Lokomotiv and Dynamo, and would also crash twice against Spartak. Only CSKA managed to beat Baltika. With difficulty. And all because the extraordinary Talalaev squadron, which emerged from the FNL, did not adapt to its rivals and tried to impose its will on them. And, as you know, cities take courage. Talalaev himself commented on the phenomenal successes of Baltika as follows: “Many people underestimated us...

The guys may not be stars yet, but in terms of the quality of their work, I understand that they are very close. And they are making great progress. Well, let our competitors continue to think that we are simple sailors and collective farmers. And we will stick to our line.”

And now the main thing is that the sailors after their vacation are not recruited (as is usually done with provincial upstarts) by capital ships, and the Baltika in full force competes for the pedestal.

True, referees can also allow them to swim for medals. Both on purpose and by accident. Our referees whistle so badly that even Vladimir Putin pointed out the problem, saying at an exhibition dedicated to artificial intelligence: “There are questions there. And the fans pay attention to this. On the quality of refereeing." I’ll add a lot of questions on my own behalf. Here's a puzzle for you. This fall, 42-year-old referee Vitaly Meshkov quietly ended his career after failing a polygraph test. But now he allegedly serves at the RFU Academy, where young referees are trained. So why be surprised that our football refereeing is at Basmanny’s level...

And finally, a few more words about painful and sad things. According to the Ministry of Digital Development, more than 2.6 million Russians have registered for Fan ID (even the figure is 3 million). However, for some reason, “receiving” a dog’s ausweiss does not affect attendance at matches (for the better). Here are the statistics of several November matches: Dynamo Makhachkala - Krylya Sovetov - 3519; "Orenburg" - "Baltika" - 3345; "Akron" - "Sochi" - 2397; "Akhmat" - "Dynamo" - 4236. So, where are the fans? Are you sick? If you think it's all about the cold, then you're wrong. During the warm period, it also didn’t reach full houses. By the way, when the former coach of the Russian national team and current mentor of Akhmat Stanislav Cherchesov was asked what he thought about the proposal of the Minister of Sports Mikhail Degtyarev to make Fan ID mandatory for trips to other Russian competitions, they received a crazy answer: “Taxes change, but you pay them... Since the state decided to do this... They shouldn’t explain everything to us.” And how can one not recall the chic phrase of the hero Valentin Gaft from Alexander Gordon’s film “Football Player”: “We live as if we were playing football. And we play football as we live.”

And for now let's take a break from the round spectacle. Until March.