And Zenit is ringing again

The club from St. Petersburg regained the championship title. In the year of the fake 100th anniversary. But in a stubborn fight with Krasnodar

Alexander Bubnov's forecast did not come true. The odious expert, if anyone has forgotten, in July 2025 (before the start of the tournament) believed that the black and green would defend the title of the best team in the country. However, the 34th Russian football championship ended in victory for those who, 12 months ago, invented a new 100th anniversary for themselves.

Let me remind you that even at the end of last season, St. Petersburg officials made our football fans laugh out loud. More precisely, the ex-chairman of the board of Zenit, Alexander Ivanovich Medvedev, made me laugh. Apparently, in order to somehow justify himself for missing the seventh championship in a row in the year of the 100th anniversary, the boss then loudly scolded the journalists who allegedly got it wrong with the round date: “Were you poor at arithmetic? When a person is born, how old is he? Zero! Then his first year begins, and so on. The year of Zenit's appearance was May 1925. At that time there could not have been a first season, because in those days they did not play according to the “autumn-spring” system. Therefore, the anniversary stage begins in July... There is no postponement: we celebrated the holiday, and now the hundredth season. And our main task is to regain the title.”

Even loyal fans almost burst their stomachs with laughter from such a passage. (Moreover, the true, and not once fictitious (for the sake of showing off) year of founding of the team from the banks of the Neva is 1936. This is written in black and white in all worthy Soviet reference books.) However, laugh out loud, but fans of other teams feared that Alexey Miller would not stand another shameful “shift” of celebration and would not forgive his subordinates for the second “centenary” mistake. And therefore, behind the scenes and beyond, he will do everything to ensure that Zenit, be it a carcass or a scarecrow, reaches the gold medals.

And indeed:

For the sake of a brilliant goal, the rich St. Petersburg authorities, as usual, spared no expense and in total over two transfer windows spent more than 55 million euros on new foreign players from Brazil, Argentina and Colombia

(for comparison: Krasnodar allocated 17 million euros for strengthening). Plus, Gazprom promised not to offend all its football chicks with fantastic bonuses in case of “long-awaited” success.

However, in fact, until the beginning of this May, Sergei Semak’s charges moved slowly and were, in fact, behind the back of Krasnodar, which, although it did not demonstrate anything supernatural, acted angrily and reliably and topped the table of ranks for a total of more than 230 days. It seemed that Murad Musaev, who carried out a real palace coup in 2025 and threw Zenit off the throne, which had been sitting on it for six years, would again bring the friendly “bulls” to delight. (For reference: in the 21st century, four clubs managed to defend the title in Russia: Spartak (2000–2001), CSKA (2005–2006, 2013–2014), Rubin (2008–2009) and Zenit (2010–2011/2012, 2018–2024.)

But, as you know, climbing to the top is in any case easier than staying there. After all, all teams always have a special spirit for the championship. And the fans of the southerners (not to mention President Sergei Galitsky) demanded that the fabulous trick be repeated at all costs. Krasnodar successfully dealt with this additional pressure, despite the short bench, until the 29th round. However, a week ago in Petrovsky Park, while leading the score, they lost 1:2 to Dynamo, who again failed the season (7th place) and no longer faced any tournament goals...

Before the final round, everything was in the hands of Zenit, which, having defeated Sochi, was two points ahead of the black and green. However, putting aside all club preferences, one can only be glad that even in our dull (in terms of the game) championship, for the third year in a row, the fate of the crown is decided, in chess parlance, in the endgame.

It’s only a pity that the rivals of Zenit and Krasnodar, Rostov and Orenburg, were no longer interested in points, so they managed to protect themselves from relegation to the lower division. But the public (neutral, of course) hoped that the Rostovites would resist and give battle to the “gang” from St. Petersburg on their field. Not for the sake of helping hot neighbors, but for the sake of one’s own prestige and in order to avoid further conversations about how “everything has been bought” in the RPL. How can one not remember that in 2024 Zenit became the champion in their home arena after a rather strange mistake in the end by the then Rostov goalkeeper Sergei Pesyakov...

His colleague - the current goalkeeper of the yellow-blues Rustam Yatimov - missed the ball in Sunday's battle already in the 14th minute. But there is nothing to blame him for: Alexander Sobolev took the penalty perfectly. A penalty, the purpose of which was not questioned. But why did the home team’s defender Mironov slap Brazilian Pedro in the face in his own penalty area in a harmless situation (when the ball had already gone beyond the goal line) - think and decide for yourself.

Be that as it may, that moment turned out to be decisive. Zenit, which was quite happy with a draw, then calmly restrained all the opponent’s attempts to even out the result, and a banner with the inscription “Champions” appeared on the blue-white-blue podium a quarter of an hour before the final whistle...

In a parallel match, Krasnodar defeated Orenburg (3:0), but this was not enough to retain the honorary title. And the southerners only have themselves to blame, among whom, by the way, were the top scorer of the tournament, Colombian John Cordoba (17 goals in 28 matches) and the best player in the “goal + pass” system (13+16 in 30 matches), Eduard Spertsyan. The “Bulls” captain, to his credit, briefly and honestly summed up the team’s silver championship: “We need to find motivation and work even harder. We gave this race away ourselves.”

...Someone will say: “Zenit” this time jumped onto the golden pedestal not because of the game. But let's take a look at the statistics: the St. Petersburg team conceded the fewest goals (19 goals) and suffered only two defeats in nine months - from Akhmat and Orenburg.

That is, none of the leaders bothered to punish Sergei Semak’s charges. Sergei Bogdanovich himself, outwardly, did not perceive Victoria too emotionally, but noted: “I would give up six previous titles without looking at it for today’s prize. Why? Those victories are long gone in history... And one year without a trophy was already a bit sad... I’m glad that they brought back the holiday and good mood to our city.”

It is noteworthy that Zenit won the 11th title in recent history and overtook Spartak, which has 10 Russian championships, in this indicator. And for Semak himself this is the seventh success. And he is only one step away from the record of Oleg Romantsev, who had a hand in eight red-and-white awards of the highest standard.

Spartak’s team, by the way, could have taken bronze medals, but failed to overpower Makhachkala Dynamo team in Kaspiysk (0:0). And the top three winners were completed by Lokomotiv, who lost 1:3 to the army team, but had two points in reserve... But the purveyors of the ideas of the Spaniard Juan Carcedo still have a chance to save the season: on May 24 they will clash in the final of the national cup with Krasnodar, which has never won this competition...

The gold medals and championship cup were awarded to Zenit right at the Rostov Arena stadium. But the real large-scale celebrations, of course, will take place in St. Petersburg (on Nevsky Prospekt and not only).

Especially to the joy of those who last year, by a strong-willed decision, moved the already “pseudo-centenary” anniversary to May 2026...

Sochi and Paris NN left the Premier League. And in the play-offs on May 20 and 23, Dynamo Makhachkala will fight with Ural and Akron with Rotor for the right to remain in the elite.