[FM21] Hell's Youth - Chertanovo home-grown challenge

[Koetzer]

The football school in Chertanovo district of Moscow was founded in 1976. It wasn’t affiliated with any senior team at that time, however several future USSR/Russia international players, like Igor Kolyvanov and Igor Chugainov, grew up here. In 1993 a professional team was established and mostly played in the lower leagues, but latest seasons brought a surprising success. The team, entirely consisting of home-grown players, finished 5th in their debut season in FNL (Russian second tier) and were 3rd in 2019/20 before the season was abandoned, losing the eventual promotion spot to Khimki only on goal difference.

After that the manager Igor Osinkin along with several key players moved to Krylja Sovetov, so the renewed team is now involved in the relegation battle but more youngsters appear in the first team (including 15 year old Sergey Pinyaev, who previously had a trial in Manchester United academy and now became the youngest ever FNL goalscorer).

 

Unfortunately, this unique policy isn’t represented well in default FM database, and it’s actually impossible to sign even players from own youth intake. So I had to recreate the club in the editor to remove these restrictions (luckily there was a second team in the inactive division, so I just moved all the data and staff there). And of course, I will follow the real life transfer policy – signing only the players who came through the club academy or under-18 Russian players to develop them in our youth system.

So far we are playing at Luzhniki reserve field but should to our own Chertanovo Arena expanded to 5000 seats. The youth setup is good for our level, except the training facilities but hopefully we'll have improvements with time.

[Koetzer]

Squad

Goalkeepers

Ilja Abaev is our most experienced player who returned home after 20 years in different teams including Lokomotiv and Krasnodar. I hope he’ll stay with us for more than one season, as the replacement options are not so good. 

Defence

Team captain Bartasevich is the best option on any defensive position, and I’ll use him in the center along with younger Nikitenkov. Gudkov and Kondakov will be first choices on the wings (Gerchikov also can cover right-back position, but he looks better as a winger and will mostly play there).

Midfield

Our best DM option Kamyshev is currently loaned out, so the place in starting eleven will be contested by Nadolskiy and Suleimanov. Two positions closer to attacking line are clear – Rudkovskiy and Velikorodny should start in most games, younger Sokolov and Pershin will be backups.

Attack

Vice-captain Zavezen and already mentioned Gerchikov are the first winger options, and the spot at front is so far undefined with three contenders to start – Molchanov, Molteninov and of course Pinyaev (he's hidden from the default FM database due to age restrictions so I had to create him manually). Saveljev is another youth prospect who can develop into a good striker in future.

[SRL88]

lots and lots of youth challenges this year . Could be interesting come awards time.

Good luck with this

[AcademyAllTheWay]

Hi! Will definitely follow your progress! Would you mind sharing your database? Also, you mentioned you used your second team for setting the save up, meaning you have no second team anymore. The second team would come in handy in such a save, given that it is actually playing in PFL and has a chance to get into FNL, and FNL is a playable league, where your youngsters can grow much faster. If you create a second team with the board request, it will never get to a playable league.

[Koetzer]

8 hours ago, AcademyAllTheWay said:

Hi! Will definitely follow your progress! Would you mind sharing your database? Also, you mentioned you used your second team for setting the save up, meaning you have no second team anymore. The second team would come in handy in such a save, given that it is actually playing in PFL and has a chance to get into FNL, and FNL is a playable league, where your youngsters can grow much faster. If you create a second team with the board request, it will never get to a playable league.

Sure. Chertanovo-2 only played in PFL for one season in 18/19 and now is set to 'lower division' in database so couldn't get promoted anyway.

Chertanovo v3 + Pinyaev.fmf

[dashi112]

@Koetzer in fm21 you actually can sign your youth intake...just not anyone else who has come through the club academy. In fm20 you could sign nobody

 

[Koetzer]

Season 2020/21 – part 1

That’s a really good start. We lost to Torpedo and Nizhniy Novgorod at home (could be expected as their squads are a lot stronger and more experienced than ours), but defeated all other opponents and so far haven’t dropped points in away games. Sergey Pinyaev only needed about 30 minutes to score his first senior goal and give us the opening win against Irtysh. He scored twice more in August, and so far all his goals were decisive!

After few days we faced SKA again, this time in the cup, and another winning goal from Pinyaev let us advance to the group stage, where couldn’t cope with RPL side Khimki and actually lost any chances to go further. Speaking of the league, we climbed to the promotion spot but a disappointing loss to Veles sent us back to 4th place.

October was a hard month, we couldn’t win in the league and lost Zavezen and Pinyaev with injuries. On the deadline day I signed our former striker Tsypchenko on loan from Krylja Sovetov, and my assistant found a promising winger Gainutdinov for free. And surprisingly he scored his first goal earlier when I started him in a cup game which couldn’t decide anything.

That was a massive turnaround after a poor form in previous month, we won all the seven games in November and moved up to second place again!

An unfortunate ending to the first part of the season, we were better but couldn’t score and conceded on the last minutes.

Nothing is decided yet, top eight teams have good chances to claim promotion or playoff spots. Surprised to see Textilschik and Chaika in the leading group, while Torpedo and Krylja Sovetov are massively underachieving.

Our first youth intake is labeled as a golden generation, though I know it doesn’t guarantee anything, especially in the first season  

[Koetzer]

Season 2020/21 – part 2

Our first departure, the board accepted offers for Sokolov from Dinamo and Lokomotiv (unfortunately he didn’t choose the second one which also included a future sale clause).

Not the best personalities for our best prospects, but potentially Kravchenko, Korotkov and Trofimov can develop into good defensive players, and Goncharov is the most promising striker here. The disappointing thing about FM21 youth intakes is that top prospects now don’t agree to sign for a minimal wage with 3 years extension clause  

 

No chances against the league leaders, need to improve in future.

Some very boring games where all our strikers completely forgot how to score, but still we got enough points to stay in the playoff position. Could do better if those B teams weren’t fielding so many main squad players against us 

A tough schedule in April, and our defense obviously wasn’t in good form here. Nine goals conceded in first three games and the only draw thanks to a comeback from 1-3 in Krasnoyarsk. We managed to snap this poor run against Volgar, and then held Orenburg for a draw to retain 4th place. With three games to go Nizhniy Novgorod and Baltika already secured promotion, and three teams will contest the playoff places.

Two wins actually were enough to secure our place in playoffs. We’re going to face Rotor there and that’s not the worst option (at some point much stronger teams, like Rubin and Rostov were on these places in RPL).

Krylja Sovetov with a lot of ex-Chertanovo players in the squad almost caught up the playoff spots, but that wasn't enough after a poor autumn run. I think if we can win the promotion, it will be possible to bring some of them back (depending on the finances, of course).

 

We created more real scoring chances, but their attackers showed some clinical finishing so we even had to equalize. Still a draw with two away goals gives us a good chance for promotion!

And we did it! Once again Zavezen gave us an early lead and we managed to increase it in second half. Have absolutely no idea how we would survive in RPL, but hopefully at least 14th place will be a realistic target.

Best Eleven

Two center-backs shared the highest average rating, not a big surprise as the FM21 rating system seems to be more favorable to defenders (they form the whole top 10 of the league). Pinyaev became our top goalscorer despite rarely playing the whole 90 minutes. He still needs to improve and become more consistent but already shows his talent.

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2021/22

Predicted last, just as expected. Overtaking two other promoted teams should be our main goal this season.

 

Transfers out

Unfortunately, Abaev decided to retire after helping us winning the promotion.

Transfers in

Thanks to the new sponsorship deal, we could afford what I planned after the last season. Three players returned home from Samara – goalkeeper Lomaev, left-back Gorshkov and right winger Yezhov will obviously strengthen our squad, and Tsypchenko joined us on a full contract after his decent performance on loan.

 

Also we moved to the 15000-seated Torpedo stadium to meet RPL requirements. The funniest thing here is the rebuilding date (it’s under reconstruction IRL, but FM somehow counts it finished three years before the plan  ) 

[Koetzer]

Season 2021/22 – part 1

 

We had to play the opening game against Rostov without three starting defenders who all were suspended after the playoffs, so Boris Kravchenko, the most promising player from the latest youth intake had an unexpected RPL debut. Still we only conceded from a penalty, so could hope for a good result against Baltika and eventually managed to achieve it! Sergey Pinyaev set the final score and became the youngest ever RPL goalscorer.

Our first away win came against Arsenal Tula, thanks to an early red card to their player and immediate punishment from Tsypchenko. And then we almost defeated one of the league favorites Spartak, but Bartasevich scored an own goal trying to clear the ball without any actual pressure from opposition. Summer ended for us with a heavy loss against CSKA, hopefully we won’t repeat this kind of performance too often.

Tsypchenko suffered an injury and we couldn’t score at all in the league, though gained two points at home. The first cup game also wasn’t easy, before Pinyaev scored the late winning goal we had no real advantage.

 

We played against four of the current top six teams so defeats could be expecting, still such a poor run was sad to watch. Even the cup game against Tyumen ended with a penalty loss (anyway a draw in regulation time was enough to advance from this group). But finally we managed to get our first league win in almost three months against Ural and climbed out of relegation zone. November can decide a lot as we will face other teams from the bottom.

After losing to Baltika I was sure that we are going back to FNL, and first half against Khimki was also poor but two long shots gave us an important win to finish this part of the season with a bit more optimistic mood.

NN and Baltika are doing better so far, but we are ahead of Ufa and Arsenal and yet have to play both of them in spring. Winning these games will be very important for our survival in RPL. Krasnodar is on the road to their first ever league title, though anything can change after the break.

Speaking of the new youth intake, we are again promised to get a golden generation. Hope this time it's something more than a standard FM teasing.

[Koetzer]

Season 2021/22 – part 2

I returned Sokolov on loan, he only played for Dinamo second team but improved there and now can be our starting player. And left-back Kenyaikin looks really good for only 16 years old!

 

Three of the four promising players are left wingers   Utkin is the highest rated among them and can actually break into the main squad as a backup soon. Central midfielder Yakovlev also has a lot of potential to develop. We also got an Argentinian goalkeeper who’s unlikely to improve but at least has a good personality to remain in the youth squad.

 

We were really lucky with this cup draw, Textilschik was the only lower league team remaining at this stage. After defeating them we’ll face Ural in quarter-final and will play at home again.

Losing to Ufa put our survival under a big doubt, the remaining fixtures give us only a few realistic chances to get some points and we are already 15th. Things are going much better in the cup, we reached semi-final but most likely will stop there against Dinamo.

We kept some chances to survive after defeating Nizhniy Novgorod, and despite losing all other games stayed above the direct relegation spots, thanks to Khimki’s awful run – they lost seven games in a row. Actually it all could be even better if we converted our chances against Akhmat, but there I felt like playing FM20 – Pinyaev had four one on one chances and couldn’t do anything, while their right-back with poor finishing scored twice within three minutes. We still have a game in hand but it’s against Krasnodar and I doubt that we’ll get any points from them.

That was awful but somehow we survived. Still have to fight for this place in playoffs with Krylja Sovetov.

We sent a lot of shots wide before Zavezen finally managed to hit the target on 55th minute. A great result for playing at home first.

So far we played four playoff games, and Zavezen opened the score in each of them! He obviously should have high important matches attribute, even though it isn’t in his coach report. So, another season of struggle in RPL incoming  

 

Squad stats

I think it’s the first time in any of my careers when a goalkeeper became the team's highest rated player, and actually Lomaev deserved it – without his saves we would have finished bottom of the table. But what really surprised me – he also won the best Russian goalkeeper award! Pinyaev became our best goalscorer, he’s developing really well and I’m glad that we managed to sign a new contract.

And finally we were in decent financial state to afford some facilities improvement.

[WilsonJuve]

Playing with the same team myself I would have loved to see what you could have done with the official rules in place. Im 26 games in to the first season and 5th. We have no wage budget left and all our first team apart from 4 will be free transfers at the end of the season if there contracts expire. 

[Koetzer]

On 12/12/2020 at 21:13, WilsonJuve said:

Playing with the same team myself I would have loved to see what you could have done with the official rules in place. Im 26 games in to the first season and 5th. We have no wage budget left and all our first team apart from 4 will be free transfers at the end of the season if there contracts expire. 

Good luck with this, hopefully you'll get really good youth intakes in first seasons as some positions will need a lot of strengthening (at least a decent goalkeeper to replace Abaev).

 

Pre-season 2022/23

Still predicted last, though with the same odds as Baltika.

 

Transfers out

Just sent some fringe players on loan, the first team remained the same. 

Transfers in

Kuznetsov returned after six seasons in Dinamo Bryansk and will be our backup goalkeeper. Belyaev’s key attributes aren't impressive but well balanced, and with gaining some points into each of them he will become a decent defender. Nagle was released by Dinamo Moscow and hopefully can develop here (though I mostly sign him for the unusual set of nationalities  ).

[Koetzer]

Season 2022/23 – part 1

The start was surprisingly good, we were 3-1 ahead in St. Petersburg with 20 minutes to go, couldn't keep this lead but then completely outplayed Rubin at home!

Our games are certainly more entertaining to watch than they were last season. We were smashed by CSKA and Krasnodar, but two wins against weaker teams were satisfying, with such results we won’t be in risk of relegation. Center-back Kravchenko, who became a starting player this season, scored his first career goal against Baltika.

We gained three more points in RPL, thanks to a late winner from Tsypchenko, and advanced further in the cup where Utkin scored two on his debut in the first team (and one more in the next league game, unfortunately only as a consolation).

The World Cup in Qatar messed up this season’s schedule, so our break starts a month earlier than usual. Before this we had a good month, except the loss against Nizhniy Novgorod (still were better on xG there) - recorded our biggest win in RPL against Ural, saved an honorable away draw with the title holders Dinamo and finally defeated struggling Lokomotiv with a late double from Sokolov.

Best of the rest so far! The top five are way too strong but we surely can hope for a solid mid-table finish. And our attack is the best in RPL at the moment, that’s really unexpectable after we struggled to score for months last season.

Russia couldn’t qualify for the World Cup, so it’s only a friendly call-up but still a sign of the club development.

Another golden generation, this time with DC and MC as the most promising players. Would be nice to get an improvement for these positions.

 

Sokolov won the best Russian player award, with Pershin on second place. Strange that Pinyaev wasn’t even included into a shortlist.

[Koetzer]

Season 2022/23 – part 2

Sad to see our best player leaving the team after the season, but there wasn’t much I could do. The board accepted a bid from Spartak Moscow, and I only could offer him to other clubs and at least sell him abroad (though Spartak offered up to 12 million euros in different clauses).

 

This intake had less players to be signed, but Andrey Anisimov looks like the best prospect from all three seasons so far. And I also hope for center-back Podymov’s progress, this position is really our weakness so far.

 

Typical match scheduling in RPL – two-week gaps in July and August and a lot of fixtures to play now on snow-covered fields. The results were mixed, we player another good game against Zenit and this time managed to hold the lead, got a point from Spartak and confidently defeated Rubin, though at the same time were knocked out of the cup and suffered two heavy losses against CSKA and Krasnodar.

The schedule in March seemed to be easier, but the games actually were not. We defeated only the last placed Rotor, and even there were behind with 10 minutes to go. Pinyaev won the NXGN award (looks like another Golden Boy alternative), a bit strange to see something like that awarded in March but nice anyway.

Our goalless run almost extended to four full games before Pershin's penalty equalizer, and then suddenly came this impressive result against Tambov! 1-2 at half-time, turned to 5-2 on 75th minute and 5-4 five minutes later! I don’t remember if any of our players scored a hat-trick before, but Pinyaev set an achievement which will be hard to surpass soon.

A poor finish but it couldn’t affect our position. We finished 6th, far away from the top teams but it’s a great result for just second season at the top flight.

Pinyaev became third goalscorer of the league with 16 goals, and I was awarded the manager of the year title (deserved, I guess ). Also it's worth mentioning that we got four points from the eventual champions.

 

Squad stats

Well… we surely will be much weaker without Pinyaev (unless it would be possible to sign him back on loan). Kravchenko became a first team player this season, good for him but it’s also a big problem that we don’t have anyone better on this position.

 

And more facilities improvements on the way!

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2023/24

Finally we overtook Baltika in the prediction table 

Transfers out

Pinyaev was listed for loan immediately, but we couldn’t afford to pay his new wage (23k per week) and I guess even if we could, he’d reject this offer as he rejected Lokomotiv later.

Transfers in

Yezhov wasn’t really impressive on loan but he’s the best available option on the right wing for us, so I needed to sign him. Fatullaev is a potentially good right-back who already can get some first team minutes this season.

[Koetzer]

Season 2023/24 – part 1

That’s going to be a real struggle. Our defense is still leaky, and without Pinyaev it’s harder to compensate with attacking strength. So that 6th place can remain our best finish for several more seasons.

Our first win could come against Rostov, but a very poor goal kick from Lomaev let them equalize in stoppage time. Then we almost saved the game with Sochi after a disastrous start (0-3 after 20 minutes) and finally got the three points against Arsenal. Striker Goncharov, who was Tsypchenko’s backup at first, took his chances really well and obviously will get more playing time in next games.

Finishing last season in top six gave us a rest from cup games until next year. Not sure if that influenced our results, but they were much better than before Yes, we were a bit lucky against CSKA, getting a penalty in one of the few attacks, but then gave absolutely no chances to Baltika.

After two heavy losses at start of the month we defeated Krylja Sovetov who came back to RPL with 37 year-old Mandzukic at front (he even scored in this game) and had a lot of chances against Tambov but conceded after a poor throw-in and only could equalize from a penalty.

We made a good comeback against Nizhniy Novgorod and held Rubin for a draw, a decent set of results for this schedule.

That’s an awesome way to finish this part of the season, especially as we never won a game against Rostov before.

Provisional 8th place is much better than I expected after few first games, though we are still much closer to the relegation zone than repeating our last season success.

That preview looks very promising with seven players considered good prospects.

Goncharov won the best Russian young player award, it's the second year in a row when our player wins it.

[Koetzer]

Season 2023/24 – part 2

No one as promising as Anisimov last year, but there are seven 5* PA players – four wingers (Shabalin, Tsarev, Sazonov and Barinov), two full-backs (Volodin and Tsvetkov) and central midfielder Shulgin. I’ll also mention goalkeeper Rudenko (among all the goalies we had in our intakes he seems the most likely candidate to reach the first team level) and our only foreigner here – Cameroonian right-back Baning.

 

A really lucky cup draw, we played against 3rd tier team at home, confidently won and will now face Tambov in quarter-final. A good chance to repeat our best cup performance.

We drew all three league games in March, and of course gaining a point against Krasnodar was especially pleasing, even despite we actually missed a chance to win conceding few minutes before the final whistle. And then we easily defeated Tambov in the cup, reaching semi-final for the second time.

We got more points from Zenit than from any other Russian top team but still I haven’t expected that result in away game! The cup run ended just like two years ago, without many chances to advance further.

These fixtures couldn’t change much for us, but still it would be nice to finish in the top half. And going unbeaten in May was eventually enough to do it!

We got only three points less and finished two positions lower than last season, that’s much better than I expected at start. Dinamo was simply unstoppable this season, setting the new record in points (not including the transitional season of 2011/12).

 

Squad stats

Goncharov scored more than Pinyaev did a season before, that’s a really good replacement! Anisimov develops well but his performance isn’t impressive so far, hope he’ll improve it soon. Also two players who were not so outstanding on the intake day managed to reach first team and got some playing time – center-back Sukhov and midfielder Andreev.

Pinyaev played the season for PSG reserves (9+5 in 25 games) and once came from the bench for the senior team. He also made his international debut in March, played two friendlies but wasn’t included into the Euro 2024 squad.

Something strange happened with facilities improvement, according to the board we are underachieving. The goal was attempt to avoid relegation and it remains the same for the next season  

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2024/25

Baltika relegated, so we're predicted last once again.

 

Transfers out

Gorshkov wanted to leave with a year left on his contract, and Fatullaev was sold by board. I could understand Pinyaev’s selling when club balance was around zero, but now, when we had 13 million it’s a very strange decision.

[Koetzer]

Season 2024/25 – part 1

Anisimov scored his first senior goals against Akhmat and let us start the season with a win. Two other games ended with draws, quite disappointing with Ufa and honorable with Krasnodar.

Not the best start of month, but we finally managed to end the winless run in a game against Krylja Sovetov. Though it wasn’t easy at all, we gave away a two goal advantage before Sokolov scored with a long shot and gave us these important three points.

Tsypchenko had an awful run of seventeen games without scoring before his goal gave us a win against Arsenal. September was a good month overall, except a trip to leading Lokomotiv. There we missed some injuried players, especially on the right side, so I included youngster Nagibin to the squad and let him make his senior debut when the score was 1-3… and that worked  

Very good results in October, we advanced to the cup playoffs (though will play CSKA in the next round so unlikely will be as successful as last season) and saved a draw against Dinamo, the defending champions.

Some high-scoring games before the break, and just like a year ago, we go to holiday after an away win against Rostov!

Zenit is massively underachieving but all other top teams are still doing well. I think 6th place can be achieved in the end if we manage to overtake Akhmat.

Our U18 team won the national youth championship, I guess that should give us a place in Youth Champions League for the next season.

Goncharov won his second Russian best young player award in a row, and also finished third in voting for the best RPL player.

Golden generation, as usual A top prospect in goal is always nice to see in this kind of career. 

[Koetzer]

Season 2024/25 – part 2

Another board intervention 

It’s a good amount of money, so we agreed a new upgrade of training and youth facilities, but Goncharov will be hard to replace so far. And we also lost Zavezen for 3 months due to injury, that weakens our attack even more.

This intake is not as rich as the previous one, though four players stand out – goalkeeper Guseinov, midfielders Akulov and Krasavin and center-back Yeschenko.

 

Without key attacking players this schedule, hard enough itself, turned into a complete nightmare. The only bright side was a debut goal by our last season’s graduate Barinov who got his chance in the first team when we had to cover those losses.

Good performance on the last minutes gave us some important points in April. I also started using Andreev as a striker, he has all the needed skills for it except finishing (which isn’t so important alone) and so far that works!

Some more late winners, including one against Lokomotiv which actually ended their title hopes.

8th place once more, but we set our new points record and finished with a positive goal difference for the first time. The title battle was tight until the last matchday, and Spartak eventually won it on better head-to-head results (and they were eight points behind at winter break). Speaking of Zenit and their struggle, the reason was very clear – they only had 16 players in the first team, and three of them were youngsters valued less than a million, so playing literally without any backup led to the expected result.

 

Squad stats

Best eleven:

Andreev

Zavezen ------------------------------------- Yezhov

Sokolov – Anisimov

Pershin

Kenyaikin – Nikitenkov – Kravchenko – Kondakov

Lomaev

I already said about Andreev’s good form as a striker, and I think he will be our first choice at front for the next season. Anisimov continued his development, and despite a bit inconsistent form became one of the best assistants in the league (just hope our board won’t sell him after first decent bid). Defense remains our biggest weakness and we’ll need to wait several seasons to make it more solid, but luckily Lomaev saves a lot and deserved to win his second goalkeeper of the year award.

 

Former players watch 

Pinyaev scored 19 goals in 27 games for PSG reserves, they don’t promote him to the main team and for some reason list him unavailable for loan too.

Goncharov didn’t play at all since leaving us, even for Porto B.

Fatullaev played 12 games for Spartak-2 in FNL.

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2025/26

In our fifth RPL season we are finally not predicted to go down.

 

Transfers out

Gudkov wanted to leave and was unlikely to progress anymore, so I let him go and returned Trofimov from loan as a backup. Utkin’s progress stalled recently, so hopefully this loan move will help.

Transfers in

Sarveli was my transfer target for a long time, especially after Goncharov departure, but his value and wage demands were too high for us. Now, as Ural relegated, we managed to sign him much cheaper.

 

Good news, as now it’s possible to qualify for Europe from 6th place.

[Koetzer]

Season 2025/26 – part 1

Sarveli made an immediate impact, scoring two in the opening game against Arsenal. Two other matches went just as predicted, though we actually had chances to equalize against Lokomotiv before they scored the second goal in a counter.

Perfect result in August, and we climbed to provisional third place! It’s unlikely that we stay there for long, but still it’s the best start we ever had.

Unfortunately we couldn’t keep Anisimov in the club for long, after this season he will join Chelsea for potentially 13 million. But right now he is still helping us remain in the top group, his assist in the stoppage time brought us a difficult win over Torpedo.

Draws against CSKA and Krasnodar are good results without any doubt, but actually we missed two wins conceding soon after our opening goals. We also advanced to the cup playoffs (glad to see my home team Novosibirsk promoted to FNL and reached the group stage) and will play Krasnodar there.

Quite a hard schedule to finish the year, and we predictably fell outside the top three. The highlight of November, however, was a senior national debut for Anisimov, the first ever player to represent Chertanovo in Russia squad (well, technically he already signed a contract with Chelsea, but obviously deserved this call-up for playing here).

Nothing is decided yet, maybe top three teams are already far ahead, but finishing in top six seems quite realistic if we manage to start well in March.

 

Meanwhile our U18 team successfully defended their national title and passed two rounds in Europe, defeating Sarajevo and Besiktas. Roma will be the next opposition.

And another golden generation incoming  

[Koetzer]

Season 2025/26 – part 2

The best assessed player is winger Pronchev, then we got a promising right-back Tskhovrebov, another decent goalie Yershov and a bunch of central midfielders (I'd highlight Goncharov as he is the most defensive-minded of all and there's not much of them in our squad).

 

Great start of the year, we were clinical in front of the goal, though in the end almost gave away a three-goal advantage. The quarter-final draw put us against Krylja Sovetov at home, can be a chance to repeat our best cup performance once again.

We played our best RPL game so far against Nizhniy Novgorod, scoring six even before half-time, but as it usually happens after big wins, struggled later and remained on 7th place. At least we reached the cup semi-final for the third time.

A month of disappointment. We missed a win against Zenit (and couldn’t overtake them for 6th place) on last minute while having a man advantage, lost Yezhov for 8 months in the same game and basically have no chances for European places with a cup defeat and all the points dropped in the league  

Our last chance to get European football next season was defeating Akhmat, and we were 1-0 ahead with 20 minutes to go… 

8th again, and even less points than last year. Very disappointing as we could do better in March and April. I was selected as manager of the year for the second time, but it’s only a small consolation.

 

Squad stats 

Best eleven:

Sarveli

Barinov ------------------------------------- Yezhov

Sokolov – Anisimov

Pershin

Kenyaikin – Nikitenkov – Kravchenko – Tsvetkov

Lomaev

Sarveli was a great addition to our squad and became the second RPL goalscorer, while Anisimov finished the season as the league leader in assists (both also set new club records). Don’t know how we will cope without our best playmaker, hopefully Shulgin and Tsarev, who already had some first team practice, will make a step forward. Two other members of class 2024 – Barinov and Tsvetkov already won the competition for the starting places against more experienced players.  

Former player watch

Pinyaev scored the first goal for PSG, but it was his only appearance in the first team. During winter break he joined Dinamo on loan and had 2+2 in 12 RPL games.

Goncharov scored 4 goals in 16 games for Porto reserves. He's already 22 and don't progress at all, so selling him for that money was a good idea. Can actually bring him back for 2-3 million but doubt that we really need him now.

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2026/27

A few more places up in the prediction chart, and we are now expected to finish mid-table.

 

Transfers out

Anisimov was listed for loan after joining Chelsea, and we could keep him for one more season, but a bid from CSKA was obviously more appealing. Rudkovskiy and Velikorodny, our starting midfielders from the first seasons, also left the team (Velikorodny wasn’t a planned sale but the bid was quite good and we had enough players to replace him).

 

I think it should be the top level of junior coaching and second highest of recruitment. Training and youth facilities (currently good and great) are going to be upgraded in October.

Meanwhile something strange happened in Krasnodar, their manager retired five days after appointment at the age of 35.

 

P.S. Forgot to mention this in the latest season update, but our U18 team eventually reached the Youth League semi-final, not bad for the debut.

[Koetzer]

Season 2026/27 – part 1

We started with two and a half perfect games Honestly I didn’t expect two wins with not the easiest schedule, but there also were two shutouts for Lomaev. Then we were 1-0 ahead a half-time against Dinamo before their better quality finally resulted in goals. And Pinyaev scored the winning one, who else could it be?  

Our performance against Zenit and Spartak was decent, still not enough to gain any points. Though we defeated Akhmat with a late winning goal from Barinov, which is great at they were in top six last season and are going to repeat this success.

Friendlies are filtered out, but we also were playing against Chelsea (part of Anisimov’s transfer) and only missed the win in stoppage time. Yes, it wasn’t the top lineup against us, but still Werner, Gnabry, Abraham, Rabiot, Ferran Torres and several newgen wonderkids played there.

I have absolutely no idea how to hold the lead effectively in this game, no matter if we go more defensive or stay more attacking - we concede or at least allow good chances in the end. 2-0 against Krasnodar, 3-1 against Rubin and only one point from these two games. Guess we simply need better defenders  

We play much better when our goal is needed in the end, that’s for sure. Two draws saved in Moscow derbies didn't improve our position but at least didn't allow opponents to break away. Roman Yezhov finally came back after injury, scoring a goal and two assists in his first start since April.

It looks like another season when we’ll be close to continental places but won’t eventually reach them.

And another golden generation, seventh in a row. As always, hope for a really good center-back there.

Our U18 team won their third consecutive title. Striker Artem Yershov was the top performer, scoring 10 goals in 6 games, hopefully he and other players will continue improving to break into the first team.

[Koetzer]

Season 2026/27 – part 2

Decided to let Tsypchenko leave, he was only a fringe player, spent last year on loan in Belarus and now continues his career in Kazakhstan. 

 

Well, that’s a real star. Defensive midfielder Yury Gudkov goes straight to the main squad and can challenge Pershin for a starting place. Other players look not so impressive (could we hope for more though?), attackers Chilyushkin and Levin are the most promising. Unfortunately, none of the defenders look like a real prospect, Kharin is assessed as the best but these physical attributes need too much improvement.

 

Dinamo ended our cup run, and Pinyaev again scored the decisive goal against us.

This win over Akhmat can be very important in the end, they had more chances to score but we took ours better. We were quite close to gaining some points from Spartak and Zenit as well, but their advantage was bigger (especially against Spartak, when Shulgin was sent off on 20th minute and we scored with the only real chance in counter) and eventually resulted in the winning goals. What’s interesting, our U18 team also lost to Spartak in the Youth League quarter-final few days before the main team’s game.

Three wins leave us a chance to get European football next year, with three games to go we are only one point behind 6th place, and the remaining schedule is quite similar for us and Lokomotiv.

Same old story. 3-1 ahead with 10 minutes to go, and we fail to keep it once again. This draw ended our chances to get 6th place, which actually didn’t mean anything this season as Akhmat won the cup and took the last European spot. Not too disappointing then  

Sarveli scored less than last season (15 goals) but again finished second in the goalscorers table.

 

Squad stats

 Best eleven:

Sarveli

Barinov ------------------------------------- Tsarev

Sokolov – Shulgin

Pershin

Kenyaikin – Nikitenkov – Kravchenko – Tsvetkov

Lomaev

As I expected, Shulgin and Tsarev became first team players. Our defense is still weak, I tried to alter our starting pair but it didn’t work much better (though Yeschenko’s performance was quite promising and I guess he will get more playing time next season). Kenyaikin’s stats are really weird, I don’t see him playing as poorly as the game rates him, though try to give more chances to his backup Volodin.

Former players watch

Pinyaev moved to Dinamo permanently after loan and had 8+5 in 23 RPL games. Not bad, but he obviously could do better now if hadn’t stuck in PSG reserves for several years.

Goncharov returned to RPL as well, I could sign him back but he would be only a backup player here and I didn’t make a bid. Ufa paid 1.7 million and got a good striker for their level – 6+3 in 19 games.

Anisimov helped CSKA to defend the title, being a key player. 5+5 in 29 games, and that’s mostly from the defensive midfielder position.

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2027/28

Predicted 9th now, so I guess there won’t be a big overachievement this season (breaking into the top group still looks very hard). And as Russia again lost a place in the UEFA ranking, there will be only five European spots.

 

Transfers out

Zavezen and Yezhov were among our best players a few seasons ago, but now age and injuries turned them into high-paid backups, and some younger players are ready to replace them. Same goes to a backup goalkeeper Kuznetsov. I also sent one reserve player on loan to Wellington (as usual offered him to clubs from Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia etc. and just for fun selected New Zealand, was surprised they actually made a bid ).

 

Quite a surprising call-up for Kenyaikin considering his last season form, though AI managers rarely care about it.

And Anisimov’s transfer brings us some more money. Hopefully he eventually will play for Chelsea as we have a clause for his league appearances.

[Koetzer]

Season 2027/28 – part 1

Eight goals in the opening game, one in three others. Can’t say I’m surprised with such inconsistency at all, but still setting a new club record (and leading the table for two weeks  ) is pleasing.

Apart from the game in Krasnodar, when we conceded two penalties in first 13 minutes, it was a decent month. Two wins and a draw against the champions of two last seasons (quite a funny game, we conceded 25 seconds after kick-off and equalized 12 seconds after half-time ).

Four wins out of four, and of course the most pleasing one came against Dinamo. They were leading the league, unbeaten at that moment, and in 14 previous matches we only managed to get three draws from them. And finally this streak was broken with Tsarev’s hat-trick!

We were knocked out of cup, and… no idea what happened in a game against Baltika, they were 15th placed but completely outplayed us. However, other league results were quite good and kept us in the top six, not far from leaders. Gudkov scored his first senior goal, he’s our best set piece taker so already made some assists before, and now got a chance to shoot from a free kick.

Two narrow wins and a game against Spartak where we started poorly (0-3 on 30th minute) but almost saved a draw - that’s a decent way to finish the year. Also we had a record of 22 players called up into different national teams, including Barinov who made his senior debut for Russia in a friendly against New Zealand.

Could this be our breakthrough season? We certainly shouldn’t finish lower than 6th, but hopefully won’t be last in this group and finally get some European football next year.

Can’t say that we need another central midfielder or winger, but if there’s someone as good as Gudkov, I won’t mind  

[Koetzer]

Season 2027/28 – part 2

No superstars this time, though Yesin can develop into a really good winger. Other prospects include two central midfielders, both with second nationalities – Tadevosyan and Santos, right-back Agapov and goalkeeper Gioev.

 

Well… we couldn’t keep the pace of leading group. Defeated CSKA after a strong start, but lost all other important matches and finished 6th. Still it’s our best season so far, and hopefully we will do even better next season.

Squad stats

Best eleven:

Sarveli

Barinov ------------------------------------- Tsarev

Sokolov – Shulgin

Gudkov

Kenyaikin – Nikitenkov – Kravchenko – Tsvetkov

Lomaev

In his first full season in senior football Gudkov became our highest rated player! And with his appearance as a first team player our defenders also get better ratings, can’t be a coincidence. Though I’m still searching for better options for center-backs, and for the final games moved Panteleev to the senior squad. He wasn’t among the top prospects in his intake, but with good personality and mental attributes developed really well. And probably we’ll see a change of starting goalkeeper next season, Rudenko looks ready to challenge Lomaev. 

Former players watch

Pinyaev remained in Dinamo (though PSG tried to sign him back in winter for 13 million, no idea why). 6+6 in the league, not really impressive to be honest.

Goncharov signed a new contract with Ufa and actually disappointed – just 2+2 in the league.

Anisimov spent second season on loan with CSKA and scored 5 more goals.

 

Our first representative on a major tournament! Hopefully he’ll get some playing time. Kenyaikin also was in the provisional squad but suffered an injury, and Sokolov made his debut earlier in a friendly.

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2028/29

Joint 6th with Akhmat and Lokomotiv, the top teams are still far better.

Transfers

Gerchikov, one of the last players remaining from the 2020 squad, joins Tsypchenko and Yezhov in Kazakhstan. Also I sold Andreev, who at one moment became a first choice striker, but now other players look better even as backups.

 

Russia got the only point in the Euro group with Italy, Ukraine and Bulgaria. Barinov spent all games on the bench, while Anisimov started all three.

Some interesting news from the second tier, would be interesting to follow them if this takeover happens.

[Koetzer]

 Season 2028/29 – part 1

What an opening, despite two red cards in first half (one of them was later cancelled, but it didn’t make things easier in the game itself) we managed to score and hold the lead. Discipline issues continued against Dinamo (Barinov was sent off) and this time we lost, but then defeated Spartak for the first time ever. We couldn’t even get a draw against them in four years before! 

Zenit activated Kenyaikin release clause, and in the next game we were lucky to lose only 0-1 against Akhmat Though we managed to bring Anisimov back on loan! He’s still sitting in Chelsea reserves, and this time there were no bids from bigger Russian teams to beat us.

Two very disappointing defeats, both with decisive goals conceded on last minutes. This inability to get results against big teams is really frustrating  

Started with a pleasing away win over Lokomotiv (they are struggling this season but still have a good squad), but then lost to Zenit after missing a penalty early in the game and couldn't beat Rubin despite having 3 XG and 15 shots on target against 1 

Away draw against league leaders and two confident wins – that’s a good way to finish the first part of the season. Right winger A.Tsarev made his international debut for Russia, totally deserved it as he’s currently our best player with 12 goals and 7.37 average rating. Unfortunately, he’s wanted by PSG and has a release clause of 11 million, so probably wouldn’t stay here even until the end of season.

6th place again, but CSKA has two games in hand and probably will overtake us. The cup may be our better chance for Europe, though we got a very unlucky draw and will play against Zenit in St. Petersburg.

It’s obviously our worst intake preview so far, but probably won’t be so poor as our senior squad quality is much better now.

[Koetzer]

Season 2028/29 – part 2

Tsarev left us for a release clause, and it wasn’t even a foreign club   Lomaev and Shulgin requested to leave as they were not first team players anymore, and somehow Shulgin caught Porto attention. Well… we have a future sale clause so maybe will get some benefits from this transfer. 

The preview didn’t lie. In addition to low predicted potentials, the best players here have quite poor personalities. Maybe Ibragimgadjiev can develop into a good winger though.

 

Despite the departure of our best player and conceding first we managed to advance! Gudkov’s long shot took the game into extra time, and then Yershov scored the winner when everyone was already expecting a shootout.

Yershov scored another late winner against Akhmat, and this goal let us continue the battle for European places. The cup quarter-final was much easier than previous stage, and we’re going to play Krasnodar next.

I thought we can have more chances in the cup, but instead we had a really great league run! Couldn’t break through Rostov defense, but then got seven points from Krasnodar, CSKA and Zenit, climbing up to 4th place with two games to go! Nothing is secured yet, we can finish anywhere from 3rd to 7th depending on the last matches…

Before the final matchday we were 3rd, but dropping points could leave us 5th and without European football next season, so the final minutes against Lokomotiv were hard to watch. Anyway we held the lead and finished the season with bronze medals, and what’s even more important, will make our continental debut soon!

Was hard to predict such a strong finish after losing our best player in winter. Rudenko won the best goalkeeper award and was selected into team of the season (together with A.Tsarev, who became a champion with Spartak). Totally deserved it, he had the least goals conceded and highest save percent in the league. Well, this  is a very optimistic, though unbelievable prediction  

 

Squad stats

 Best eleven:

Yershov

Barinov -------------------------------- V.Tsarev

Sokolov – Anisimov

Gudkov

Volodin – Goncharov – Panteleev – Tsvetkov

Rudenko

Seven changes comparing to previous season. Some of them were forced (Volodin and V.Tsarev replaced players who were poached by other clubs), some predicted (Rudenko and Panteleev had some first team practice in the end of last season and impressed, and Anisimov was simply a top level addition for us), but two others were quite surprising. Yershov won the competition against experienced Sarveli, becoming our top goalscorer, and Goncharov’s good center-back attributes were previously overlooked by me, I only assessed him as a decent backup midfielder before.

 

Former players watch

Pinyaev played much better this season (13+7 in RPL) and returned to the national team with 7 caps so far.

Goncharov was Ufa’s best goalscorer (8 goals in RPL) but couldn’t save them from relegation. We’re lacking depth on striker position, so probably will keep track of him.

Kenyaikin was a regular starter for Zenit. They eventually finished lower than us, though reached the Conference League final (lost to Fiorentina in extra time).

A.Tsarev became a great addition to Spartak squad, his winning goal on the final matchday brought them the title. He also scored the first goal for Russian national team in March.

Shulgin impresses for Porto B (7.39 in 13 games), and his market value almost doubled since transfer.

 

And a great achievement for our youth! Last season’s top graduate Yesin led our team to the trophy.

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2029/30

Almost the same prediction as last season, just Lokomotiv is rated a bit lower now.

Transfers out

Kravchenko was our first newgen to break into the first team and played 170 games in RPL, but it’s time to move on. Younger defenders finally look much better than him. 

Transfers in

 

Sokolov spent 7.5 seasons on loan with us, no idea why Dinamo actually signed him and extended the contract several times  He previously asked for a much higher wage, but lowered his demands after being released on free transfer and signed for 9k per week. 

 

Anisimov was promoted to Chelsea first team, so obviously isn’t available for loan anymore but we now can receive money from appearances clause and probable future sale as his value will rise.

[Koetzer]

Season 2029/30 – part 1

That’s a perfect start! Probably two home wins were predictable, but defeating Dinamo is a nice surprise. This game was quite boring, and there weren’t any real chances for both sides, apart from Sokolov scoring against his former team.

Still top of the league after Gudkov’s winning goal against Krasnodar. The European debut goes extremely well too, after defeating Lugano we were drawn against Napoli and were obvious underdogs but destroyed them in the first leg (just look at these stats)! The group draw put us against Sparta, Koln and Hajduk, this isn’t the easiest option but we have a good chance to advance further. We also signed a 16 year old center-back Trofimov from Lokomotiv, unfortunately his potential is now rated lower than was initially scouted but he still looks promising.

Spartak was hoping to end our impressive run and scored early in this game, but we came back after two assists from corners by Gudkov. Six points advantage over second place, of course it’s still very early to celebrate anything but three away wins over top teams are really pleasing. And the group stage started even better!

This streak couldn’t last forever, and we suffered our first defeat against CSKA. Losing to Lokomotiv was even more disappointing, we were 2-0 ahead and played much better but missed a penalty, a lot of other chances and eventually conceded in stoppage time. Though we are still leading the league and go unbeaten in Europe.

Surprisingly Rostov were our closest chasers, so defeating them was important for gaining the advantage, and we got the result thanks to a penalty. European journey is really easy so far, we secured the top spot in the group with two games to go.

Great second half against Dinamo, and we’re going to the winter break with five point advantage. And another big win in Europe let us finish the group stage with perfect score and 19-0 goal difference!

Best attack, best defense. Hopefully we’ll be able to carry this form into new year.

The new intake looks a lot more promising than the previous one.

[Toin]

This has been one of my favourite saves to follow, and you are doing amazing Koetzer! Looks like your patience may pay off this year!

[Koetzer]

Season 2029/30 – part 2

Ustinov has the biggest assessed potential, but looking at his current attributes I really doubt that he will ever reach it. Khokhlov, Rajabov and Batischev look more promising for me.

 

The cup wasn’t our priority this season, but it would be very disappointing to go out after Rudenko saved two penalties. Luckily we scored a late equalizer, and then our goalkeeper made another save in shootout. 

And this happened few days after. Larin, you greedy ******  Of course, it’s the perfect time to sell our starting player when we are battling for our first ever title.

Departure of Akulov didn’t change much so far, we’re keeping the five point lead in the league, defeated another Italian team in Europe with two more clean sheets from Rudenko, and even advanced to the cup semi-final though I fielded mostly bench players against Dinamo.

Winning a league game is never easy when you are close to the title, even against outsiders. Khimki and Tom were close to take points from us, but we managed to score late winners. Same story repeated with CSKA and in cup semi-final, so we secured an eight point advantage with four games to go and also have a chance for the second trophy! Dynamo Kyiv couldn’t stop us in Europe, and we’re through to semi-final in our debut season. Will play against Marseille there, and Krasnodar is drawn with Everton, so in theory it even can be a Russian final. Just need to survive this nightmare schedule with six matches within two weeks.

A header from Barinov gave us a win in the first semi-final leg, but then things were not so good. Two defeats in the league let Dinamo reduce the gap to two points, and Marseille equalized on aggregate after just a minute into the second leg… but we responded with four goals and booked the place in the final! A game against Lokomotiv was tough as well but we got three points, Dinamo played against Spartak two days later and lost so we became champions while training before the cup final  

The final started in a shocking way – Gudkov was sent off on 1st minute for an absolutely unnecessary tackle, and the result seemed to be already clear. However we didn’t give up, held the draw for almost an hour, and then even equalized, taking the game into extra time and shootout. Unfortunately, we missed two shots and couldn’t make a double, but I really can’t blame the team for that.

Finally a bit of rest before one more very important game…

The fairytale ended. Actually it was an even game in first 20 minutes, we had several chances to score, Barinov hit the post once but then Everton’s experience played its part. Rudenko parried two shots into his own goal, and the result was set.

 

Squad stats

Best eleven:

Yershov

Barinov -------------------------------- V.Tsarev

Sokolov – Pershin

Gudkov

Volodin – Goncharov – Panteleev – Tsvetkov

Rudenko

Akulov should have been in Pershin’s place in midfield, if our board didn’t decide to sell him. Apart from this position, the first team didn’t change from previous season and this consistency paid off. Six players were selected into RPL team of the season – two wingers and almost whole defensive line. 

Former players watch 

Pinyaev played less impressive than last season, scoring 10 goals in all competitions. And he’s the highest paid player in RPL now, earning 115k per week.

A.Goncharov helped Ufa return to RPL with 21 goals.

Anisimov played 30 games for Chelsea in all competitions (though started only two of them) and scored twice. Not bad.

Kenyaikin became only a fringe player in his second season for Zenit, as they started to play 3-5-2 and a full-back didn’t fit into this.

A.Tsarev remained a regular starter for Spartak, but only got 2+3 in all tournaments.

Shulgin was surprisingly loaned by Spartak, only played two games but scored a goal in one of them.

Akulov played 12 games for Spartak, mostly from the bench, and had 1+1.

 

Three players were selected for the World Cup, V.Tsarev also was in the preliminary squad. What’s interesting, Rudenko and Goncharov haven’t got any senior caps yet.

[Koetzer]

On 14/01/2021 at 20:17, Toin said:

This has been one of my favourite saves to follow, and you are doing amazing Koetzer! Looks like your patience may pay off this year!

Thank you, a few seasons ago I was already thinking that we'll never finish anywhere higher than 6th place, and glad to see that I was wrong  

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2030/31

Of course it will be hard to defend the title, but still it’s strange to see our odds becoming even worse.

Another player left us on release clause. It's very unlikely that Tsarev will become a first team player in Paris, his attributes (apart from physical ones) are really mediocre even on RPL level.

The previous season was really good for Russian clubs in Europe (20 ranking points overall, only England had more in 29/30), and we took a big part in regaining an extra Champions League place.

Russian national team reached the World Cup second round and lost to Serbia there (3-4 with a decisive goal in stoppage time). Barinov played two games out of three and scored in both! Rudenko and Goncharov spent all tournament on the bench and still have to wait for their debut.

[Koetzer]

Season 2030/31 – part 1

Our first try in the Supercup was successful, Zenit couldn’t create any chances and we scored from one of the corners. The league started well, but dropping points against Arsenal Tula at home is quite worrying if we want to defend the title.

After losing to Dinamo we celebrated a win in another Moscow derby against Spartak, but then couldn’t break through Rostov defense, missing a lot of good chances. 5th place so far isn’t too bad, but I hoped for better results when we haven’t started our Champions League campaign yet. Speaking of it, we got Manchester United, Sevilla and Olympiacos. Hopefully we will be able to challenge the Spanish team for second place.

Only away games in September with a travel range from UK to Siberia, but we won all three in the league including an impressive 6-0 victory over Rubin. There were no surprises at Old Trafford where we made our Champions League debut, though Pronchev scored with our first shot in the game and made the score 2-1 so we even had a few minutes of hope before conceding third goal.

Yesin is really surprising me. I was worrying about our right wing after Tsarev was sold, but he looks really good in the first team, leads our goalscorers chart so far, and now his header brought us the first ever win in the Champions League! Then we confidently defeated Olympiacos and now go second after half of the games played. We also moved to the second place in RPL, though already seven points behind leading Dinamo.

We lost our best striker Yershov due to injury and couldn’t score against the bottom team, but things went better after it. Sazonov, who is most suited to a winger position but had to start at front, gave us a win over Zenit, then we scored five against Arsenal and were really close to securing a place in knockout round (needed a draw with United and held it until 85th minute when Kessie fired a long shot past Rudenko). Well, now we need to get a point in Spain.

Meanwhile the new RPL record was set in this game where our former player opened the scoring  

A nice finish of the league year, and we prepared for Sevilla in excellent mood. The game itself was boring, but what’s important – we prevented them from creating any real chances and advanced from the group in our first ever Champions League season!

Dinamo faced a serious crisis in the end of the year, losing all their advantage within a month! Akhmat goes third with a noticeable gap above other teams, that’s quite a surprise. And our defense is really solid, can’t believe that just a few seasons ago it was our main weakness.

Well, the only possible option where we could have some chances was Porto, and we didn’t get it. Will just try our best  

It’s the first intake with our new HOYD, and it seems like we finally can get a good striker! 

Barinov won the RPL players’ select award, and Gudkov was selected as the best young player.

We already had representatives in World Cup and the Euro, now it’s time for other continents. Our Tajik striker from last season’s intake made his debut for the national team.

[Koetzer]

Season 2030/31 – part 2

Sarveli helped us a lot in several seasons after arrival, but he’s 33 now and declined physically so even wasn’t the first rotation option this season. Luckily we didn’t lose anyone from the first team, Chinese clubs made some big bids for Gudkov (up to 35 million), and with our board that could easily be accepted but not this time.

That’s a really promising description, Lebedev looks like someone who may become our star forward in future, and Burenkov is the second good striker here! Also we got decent defensive midfielder Yevseev and left winger Yenin in this intake.

This seems to be our ultimate upgrade, other facilities already have maximum rating now.

 

On a snow-covered pitch we did everything perfectly to neutralize Bayern attack and scored a late winner in a counter! What’s interesting, Tochilin haven’t started any game this season and was included into the match squad only because of Barinov’s suspension. And I have no idea how he can be so quick with that height and weight Also we advanced in the cup, resting most of the first team players, and the winning goal was scored by 16-year old Batischev who developed really well during a year after intake and deserved his call-up to the main squad. 

The game at Allianz Arena started in a shocking way for the hosts – Yesin was tripped in the box, and Pershin, our captain and the only player who played all seasons since the start, confidently sent the ball in! Bayern had to score three and managed to equalize before half-time, but not more. We controlled the game and even managed to score the second goal in a counter. What a result! The league resumed for us with two disappointing draws after conceding late in both games, but then we defeated Dinamo to retain good chances for the title! Only one point separates us with eight matches remaining. 

Gudkov made his debut for the national team in a 17-0  win against Andorra and got his first goal immediately.

The great European campaign continues! We played the first leg without four suspended starting players and still managed to win after center-back Dergachev scored an early goal. A trip to London started not so well, a bad cross from opposition right winger caught Rudenko off the line, but then our keeper excused for this with starting an attack that ended with Barinov’s equalizer. Chelsea responded immediately, but that wasn’t enough, and we reached semifinal! And even there, despite Man City domination, we got quite a decent result with the only shot from Pronchev reached the goal. In the league we had an unfortunate draw with Tom, and Dinamo returned to the leading spot with Akhmat also in contention. The final matchdays are going to be very interesting. 

Man City appeared too strong for us, and we had to concentrate on the league. Haven’t drop any point in these games, but both Dinamo and Akhmat had the same form so we remained second, behind Dinamo on the number of wins.

Actually we should have won this title as have a head-to-head advantage over Dinamo, but in FM number of wins is the first tiebreaker. Didn’t notice this bug until this season And Akhmat won’t make their historical Champions League debut due to failing FFP. 

Squad stats

Best eleven:

Yershov

Barinov ------------------------------------ Yesin

Schennikov – Pershin

Gudkov

Volodin – Goncharov – Panteleev – Tsvetkov

Rudenko

Yesin had a great first season as a starting eleven player, becoming our best goalscorer. Barinov was the leader in assists, average rating, and won the best RPL player award. Rudenko was even acknowledged in a continental level, he was selected as the best Champions League goalkeeper! 

Former players watch 

Pinyaev scored 8 goals in all competitions for Dinamo, still remaining a regular starter for them. He also got his first international goals, though it was against Andorra in that 17-0 game  

A.Goncharov became the best RPL goalscorer with 20 goals! A huge surprise, and I seriously planned to sign him back but decided it would be better to wait until our newest prospects reach the first team.

Anisimov remained a backup option for Chelsea (29 games, but only 3 starts). After the season it became possible to sell his future sale clause, and I did it for 15 million. We would lose some money if he will be sold for 50+ million later, but now it seems unlikely.

Kenyaikin was a backup in Zenit and moved to Akhmat in winter for 3 million. Good move for him, both in terms of league position and his own performance (1+1 with 7.33 average rating).

A.Tsarev scored 9 goals for Spartak in autumn, and then they decided to sell him to Chinese side DL Pro for up to 20 million in different clauses. Too bad that we didn’t get any share of it.

Shulgin spent another season on loan from Porto, this time in a team more suitable to his level. 28 games for Krylja Sovetov, and eventually his goal saved them from relegation in playoffs.

Akulov moved from Spartak to Krasnodar in winter for about 5 million, was a rotation option in both teams. Scored two goals this season, both against us  

V.Tsarev scored in this first (and so far only) appearance for PSG first team and had a good season in reserves (though it’s only 4th tier). Actually it’s exactly the same story that Pinyaev had after his move to Paris.

Our youth team returned to the continental level after a year of absence and won the title again!

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2031/32

A bit closer to the top. Our reputation is now 3.5*, the same as other Russian top teams.

None of the departed players was a top prospect, still we have future sale clauses in case they will develop in their new clubs.

Russia won the U19 European Championship with six our players in the squad, Lebedev became the best goalscorer. Good start of his career.

[Koetzer]

Season 2031/32 – part 1

It was an easy schedule at start, but still nice to see three wins and no goals conceded.

Our form became much worse in August, especially in terms of scoring. We hardly could get the only goal in three games, and I decided to take a risk, promoting Lebedev to the first team and starting him against Ufa. The result was tremendous – a hat-trick on his debut while setting new records as both club and league youngest player! Then we defeated Spartak, unfortunately losing Yesin until winter break due to injury.

The Champions League draw put us against Barcelona, Atalanta and Universitatea Craiova. Not bad considering we were third seeded this time, our goal is overtaking the Italian team for finishing second.

A great start in Europe, this win over Atalanta can decide a lot in the end. Barca is way too strong for us, though we managed to score three against them, and that’s another record from Lebedev, he’s now making history in continental level. We are also second in the league, but Dinamo so far won all their games and have eight point advantage already.

A hat-trick against previously unbeaten league leaders and a player of the month award, this guy is insanely good even now! Though Dinamo continued winning after this game and we dropped points in Samara, so couldn’t close the gap.

It looks like there won’t be a real title race this season, Dinamo gave us a chance to get closer, but we dropped points in two last league games and remained seven points behind. Probably I’ll concentrate on the cup and continental games in spring. The place in Champions League playoffs was secured after a draw in Bergamo, and then we travelled to Camp Nou with a theoretical chance to win the group (needed a three-goal win), couldn’t get this margin but still that was a remarkable result.

 

Not the worst option among first seeded teams, I think.

The only highlighted player is a left winger, but there should be some more prospects in a golden generation for sure.

[Koetzer]

Season 2031/32 – part 2

Zakirov is the left winger who was highlighted in a preview, he’s a good player but lack of ambition and determination can be a bad factor in his development. Ediger looks better in terms of potential, probably he can reach Gudkov’s level in future, and Olenikov can become a good right-back.

What a way to return from the holiday! Yesin, who played his previous competitive game six months ago, was tripped in the box allowing Barinov to score, and then it was Lebedev’s time. Two goals in the playoffs from a player who just turned 16!

Disgrace. Don’t care much about RPL now, but going out of Champions League after leading 4-0 on aggregate was extremely disappointing. To make things worse, Gudkov suffered an injury on international duty and won’t play until next season. At least we are through in the cup, though our former players in Ufa squad (Goncharov and Andreev) almost took the game into extra time. That must be our priority now.

Lebedev came third in voting for NXGN award. Players above him are 18 and 19 years old, so our striker will have a chance to be awarded in future.

We advanced to our second cup final after defeating Rostov and actually could return into the title battle with a win over Dinamo, but they equalized from a controversial penalty which was their only real chance in that game. So, we’ll have two important games against Zenit in May – cup final and a league game at home only two days after it, which probably decide who will finish second and get a direct Champions League place.

May was a perfect summary of the whole season, the biggest ever away win and the biggest ever home defeat came within a week. But between them Barinov's header let us lift the cup, the only domestic trophy we still haven’t won before. 

Zenit actually almost took the title away from Dinamo, but dropped points on the last matchday and remained second. However they won the Conference League, so probably won’t be so disappointed with losing other trophies. Lokomotiv relegated in playoffs, that could be a huge surprise in starting seasons but they were not more than a mid-table team recently and had a very poor run in spring, including that 0-8 defeat against us.

 

Squad stats

Best eleven:

Lebedev

Barinov ------------------------------------ Yesin

Schennikov – Pronchev

Gudkov

Volodin – Goncharov – Panteleev – Tsvetkov

Rudenko

Finally it’s the best eleven full of newgens, though Pershin and Sokolov still provide squad depth. Lebedev set the new club goalscoring record in his first senior season and came second in the league's scoring chart. Barinov won the best RPL player award second time in a row, Rudenko was selected as the best goalkeeper, and Gudkov as the best young player.

 

Volodin and Pronchev also were in the provisional squad, and Gudkov would have been selected for sure if he wasn’t injured.

Some interesting stats in Champions League summary. Yes, we also were the biggest overachievers but that's not what caught my attention. Just look who had the best average rating! Our former striker Sarveli at the age of 34 scored seven goals in early rounds and was noticed despite his team didn't even reach the groups.

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2032/33

Despite a worse result last season our prediction is now better than ever.

Sokolov had a release clause for foreign clubs, so Pershin remained the only player from the original squad who still plays for us. Ustinov has quite a good potential, but honestly I don’t think his mental attributes will allow him to play a high level. Speaking of unsuccessful bids for our players, it was very nice to see Gudkov not willing to join Barcelona (they offered up to 70 million, and in any other career I would accept it and find some cheaper world-class Brazilian newgen ).

After an unsuccessful bid Barcelona signed another player from our academy. Anisimov only started 9 games during his time in Chelsea but they earned quite a lot on a backup player. And we lost a few millions selling his future clause a year ago.

Russia managed to win their Euro group after an opening defeat but then lost to Portugal. Rudenko was a reserve goalkeeper once again, Barinov played all the games and scored the winning goal against France, Goncharov and Tsvetkov were rotation options.

Some pleasant improvements in European rankings!

[Koetzer]

Season 2032/33 – part 1

Despite not playing at our best in all games we won five out of five in July. Started with our second Supercup win in extra time, ended with a revenge over Zenit for that 0-5 loss in spring.

Lebedev seems to suffer a second year syndrome after his spectacular debut season, but he scored when it was needed the most – in the extra time against Celtic, the goal that pushed us to the Champions League group stage. There we will face Bayern, Valencia and Young Boys, aiming for the second place like last season.

Our form in the league let us return to the top spot, but continental games didn’t go so well. We were smashed by Bayern at home, and visit to Valencia started in the same way – we conceded twice in first ten minutes, but then even managed to take the lead. Unfortunately they equalized after a corner on 93rd minute, still this result leaves us a good chance to overtake Spanish team with a win at home.

I didn’t expect a perfect form in October considering that we had to play with Spartak and Dinamo in a very condensed schedule, but we managed to win all the games and make a seven-point advantage above Zenit!

We missed a chance to extend our RPL win streak to ten games, conceding on the last minutes against Rostov, but then left absolutely no chances to Zenit and extended our lead to eight points before the winter break! The fifth goal came after a solo counter by Lebedev, it was hard to expect that kind of run after 90 minutes of play (also I have no idea why there is FM20 logo in the exported clip and what the hell is going in the center ). In Europe everything will be decided on the last matchday, we need a draw at home to advance.

Also we had a new record high number of players called up for national teams, including six for the senior squad.

I expected a tougher game, but actually Valencia had no chances to turn it in their favor. We advance to the knockout rounds for third time in a row!

I hope we won’t let this advantage disappear in spring.

There was one really lucky option among seeded teams – Celtic won the group, but we got probably the worst draw. PSG took part in three latest finals, winning two of them. Fati and Mbappe won five of six latest Golden Balls, they are getting older of course but it still will be very hard to stop them.

Though we now also have an international award winner! Yesin is our top goalscorer so far in the season, and that obviously was noticed.

Another golden generation incoming, and it would be nice to see a really good playmaker.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Koetzer
replaced broken video link

[Koetzer]

Season 2032/33 – part 2

Not the best intake, but two best players here – playmaker Lukjanov and defensive midfielder Polovinchuk look quite promising.

 

We didn’t concede at home against PSG, and I see this as a decent result. Probably a lucky goal in Paris can make the difference.

A long shot from Schennikov gave us a surprising lead, and until 75th minute we were ahead on away goals, but then PSG scored their second goal after a corner and didn’t give us any chance to respond. Our advantage in the league reached ten points with eight games to go, and now I really want to win the double.

We extended our RPL win streak to nine and now need only one point from four remaining games to clinch the title. CSKA will be our opponents in the cup final, and hopefully we will be well prepared for it and won’t encounter more injuries (already lost our first choice keeper and right-back until the end of season).

We secured the league title in Grozny and returned there for the cup final (though it was another stadium, built in 2023 for unknown reason and not used by any team, like hundreds of other ‘community stadiums’ around FM world).  And what a final it was! CSKA exploited our weakness on the right wing without injured Tsvetkov (both goals and missed penalty came from there) but we managed to turn it around. A long ball from our box found Lebedev running free from defenders, and he equalized. And when the extra time seemed to be inevitable, a cross from Burenkov wasn’t cleared well, allowing Lebedev to lunge for the ball and put it past the keeper! Amazing comeback and our first domestic double!

Dinamo eventually failed FFP and after two titles in previous seasons won’t play in Europe at all. Gudkov won the best player award, but somehow wasn’t selected into team of the season (it included eight other our players anyway).

 

Squad stats

Best eleven:

Lebedev

Barinov ------------------------------------ Yesin

Burenkov – Pronchev

Gudkov

Volodin – Goncharov – Panteleev – Tsvetkov

Rudenko 

The class of 2031 had three promising attacking players, and now they all took part in first team games. Lebedev repeated his last season’s goalscoring record despite a slow start, Burenkov was retrained as mezzala and is now the first option on this position, and Yenin provided a good backup on left wing when Barinov was injured. And of course, this season was a breakthrough for Yesin. The newest Golden Boy almost equaled Lebedev in goals scored, became one of the best assistants and had the highest average rating in our team.

There isn’t a senior international tournament this summer, but nine our players will play for the U21 team.

[Koetzer]

Pre-season 2033/34

 

Still predicted fourth, but with better odds. Dinamo can concentrate solely on the league and should be hard to beat this season.

Yershov was unhappy to become mostly a bench player, so I let him go along with some other backups who could be replaced with younger prospects.

We signed young defensive midfielder Dorozhkin, hopefully he will improve with our facilities.

 

Russian U21 team didn’t have a good time in the Euros, finishing with the only point in the group. Younger players did much better, winning the U20 World Cup with four our players (and Ustinov, who now plays in Tottenham youth) in the squad.

[deez0r]

Great read so far, very good progress being made!

[Koetzer]

Season 2033/34 – part 1

So far we never lost in the Supercup, not a very important trophy but still a nice way to start the season. The league started with a draw with probably main title rivals.

 

Four wins with an easy schedule in August, and we continue chasing Zenit who haven’t dropped any points yet. In the Champions League we were drawn into the group with Chelsea, AZ and Viktoria Plzen. Maybe it will be even possible to finish on top.

 

Not the best form in the league, despite defeating Krasnodar we are now seven points behind the leaders. The continental season started with a confident win over AZ, and game at Stamford Bridge wasn’t hopeless, but unfortunately after quite a strong start with several good chances Schennikov got two yellow cards and Chelsea used the advantage.

Lebedev made his international debut and scored his first goal in the next game. And we became the leading development team in Russia!

Probably the most important league game started terribly for us – 0-3 in the first 30 minutes, and we only could score twice after half-time. However, the international break gave us a chance to recover, and we continued with four wins over quite strong rivals while Zenit started to make mistakes. So, in the end of October we were only one point behind (though played one extra game).

Unexpected defeat in Plzen ended our hopes to challenge Chelsea for the top spot, so we only had to secure second place in a game against AZ. The league form also could be better, in the last game before winter break we coudn't break through Ural defense and missed a chance to stay close with Zenit.

 

Only third place so far. What’s interesting, we are going to play all three title rivals in a row during April, that’s when everything can be decided. 

Finally we had a relatively lucky draw in the playoffs. Of course, there can’t be any weak teams on this stage but still it’s better to face Porto than PSG.

 

Lebedev won both Golden Boy (so this award stayed in our club) and Kopa Trophy, also he was selected as the best Russian player of the year. But what really surprised me – Rudenko was third in the World Golden Glove award! He isn’t really a top class goalkeeper but attracted worldwide attention with his performance.

The youth preview promises us another good striker. I doubt that he will be a prospect of Lebedev’s level but let’s see.