Kurban Berdyev's side are leading the Russian Premier League with just a few games left, going from favourites for relegation to title contenders in a manner similar to the Foxes

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English football is in a state of delirious shock this season. Leicester City, among the favourites for relegation at the start of the campaign, with a squad of unfancied players and a head coach written off by most commentators, are set to finish as league champions, completing one of football’s greatest ever tales.

Much of the reaction has centred on the rarity of the achievement, how it is something that only happens once in a lifetime and how defying the odds to such an extent cannot ever occur again. But in Russia, all of these things are happening alongside Leicester’s remarkable season, as FK Rostov have shattered expectations to lead the Russian Premier League with just five games to go.

Rostov’s bewildering run to the top of the table has many echoes of the Leicester tale, to such an extent that Russian football parlance has begun to refer to them as ‘The Russian Leicester’. Even former Arsenal midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong, now playing for Russian side FK UFA, took to Twitter to suggest that what Rostov are doing is “the same” as Leicester’s exploits.

What Leicester is doin in England Rostov is doing the same in Russia they were in the relegation fight this time last year now top of league — EMMANUEL FRIMPONG (@IAMFRIMPONG26) April 24, 2016

Like Leicester, Rostov have risen to the top of the league after escaping relegation last season, though the Russian side’s escape was narrower, edging through a relegation play-off. Like Leicester, Rostov have journeyed to the summit with what was previously thought of as a rag-tag bunch of players that belonged at the lower end of the table. Like Leicester, Rostov hail from a city little-known outside of the immediate region, lying close to the Sea of Azov in south-west Russia, nearer to the Georgian capital Tbilisi than to Moscow. And, like Leicester, Rostov have clambered up the league under the guidance of a head coach that many thought was past his best, out of touch with modern football and destined to fail.

While Claudio Ranieri has been amassing plaudits for his work at the King Power Stadium, Kurban Berdyev has been equally heralded in Russia. Berdyev, a 61-year-old from Turkmenistan, is known for his customary tracksuit-and-baseball-cap style on the touchline, but he is also known for guiding Rubin Kazan from second-tier monotony to successive Russian Premier League titles in 2008 and 2009, beating Barcelona 2-1 in the Camp Nou in the 2009-10 Champions League along the way.

Yet despite that success, Berdyev’s twelve year spell with Rubin Kazan ended in acrimony in 2013, as the coach came into conflict with the board over their curtailing of his total control of the club. The 61-year-old had also been vice-president until 2012, resigning from that position in open conflict with the club hierarchy, before eventually leaving in 2013 and heading to Rostov in 2014. He chose one of the league’s unglamorous sides over the Moscow and St Petersburg elite due to the promise of absolute autonomy.

That decision, by both the coach and the club, has resoundingly paid off. With such control, Berdyev proceeded to get a few members of the Rubin Kazan band back together. Cesar Navas, Christian Noboa and Aleksandr Bukharov, experienced charges from the Kazan club’s 2008 and 2009 glory days, have been brought into the fold, forming a core of the league-leading side. Noboa, especially, is a wonderfully talented player. The Ecuadorian orchestrated the midfield in Sunday’s dominant 3-0 win over title rivals Zenit St Petersburg and in Rostov’s real breakthrough performance, the 2-0 victory over second-placed CSKA Moscow in March.

Following that demolition of Zenit, Rostov now find themselves just five games away from the most remarkable of Russian Premier League titles. Their run-in may be slightly tougher than nearest challengers CSKA but, then again, the odds have failed to curtail this story so far. The club are set to become the first side to break the CSKA-Zenit duopoly since 2009, when Berdyev’s Rubin Kazan did just that. Before Rubin’s triumph, you have to go back to 1996 and Alania Vladikavkaz to find a Russian champion outside of either Moscow or St Petersburg. Comparisons may be churlish, but this is a story at least equal to that of Leicester’s.

But, unlike Leicester, the future may not be completely bright for Rostov. The club, like many in Russia, are in dire straights financially, with ongoing battles against debts and mismanagement forming the backdrop to the remarkable feats on the pitch. The club were fined by the Russian Football Union for failing to pay off debts in October 2015, after being previously prohibited from registering players, with Noboa and Boris Rotenberg Jr - the son of Vladimir Putin’s oligarch judo partner - mysteriously slipping through the net and having their registrations sanctioned.

Each of the four stands at the Olymp-2 Stadium, which has become a fortress under Berdyev, have different owners, such is the financial madness at the club. A recent investigation by Novaya Gazeta alleged that Vice President Aleksandr Shikunov personally profited from the transfer of Florent Sinama-Pongolle, eventually spending his profits on a villa in Ibiza.

To add another blow to Rostov’s chances of sustained success, reports in Russia suggest Berdyev may be courted by Spartak Moscow, Zenit and Rubin at the end of the season, with former Spartak and Celta Vigo man Aleksandr Mostovoi telling Championat that the coach is "in demand. Now he can choose where he wants to go."



The problems may be mounting in the background at Rostov but, on the field, the players continue to make a mockery of the many that have predicted their ultimate tumble towards obscurity. With just five games remaining, their ultimate destiny in their own hands. Five games, then, to determine whether Rostov truly are the Russian Leicester.