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Excitement, a tight finish from top to bottom of the league table and a completely unexpected champion, it’s fair to say that the 2017/18 RPL season kept both ourselves at RFN and all other viewers of Russian football gripped throughout. As the curtain comes down on yet another season of football in Russia, here are five things we have learned.

1) Money and reputation certainly doesn’t guarantee success

Pre-season, one RPL club made all the headlines with their dealings, that club was Zenit St. Petersburg. After appointing Italian manager Roberto Mancini, once of Inter Milan and Manchester City, Zenit spent nearly €80m on players. Zenit went for affordable talent from fellow RFPL clubs such as Miha Mevlija and Alexsandr Erokhin alongside big-name foreign signings like Leandro Paredes and Matias Kranevitter in an attempt to win the Europa League. What followed was nothing short of a disaster, Zenit finished in 5th place, the club’s lowest finish since 2008. Zenit also disappointed in the Russian Cup, losing to second-tier city rivals Dinamo St Petersburg in the last 32 and also suffered a last 16 exit in the Europa League to Bundesliga side RB Leipzig.

Like his predecessor at Zenit, Mircea Lucescu, Mancini grossly underestimated the league. He had a fine start, winning eight and drawing three of his first 11 league matches. Then disaster struck for Zenit with a 1-0 home defeat against Arsenal Tula. This was the catalyst for yet another “Winter of Discontent”, which is seemingly an annual occurrence from the team from Piter. Between this loss and Matchday 24, Zenit won only two league games out of 12.

Mancini failed to achieve consistent results and also crucially failed to get the best out of his squad of players. Many of Mancini’s signings were also huge failures with arguably the only three to impress being the aforementioned Paredes and Mammana and midfielder Daler Kuzyaev. Mancini’s failure is emphasised by Zenit spending more on transfers than the other 15 RPL clubs combined and only having a 5th place in the league to show for it. Perhaps the only positives from his time at Zenit were getting the best out of Aleksandr Kokorin and Zenit receiving compensation from the Italian Football Federation for Mancini to become Italian national team head coach. Mancini’s sole season in the RFPL is proof that money and reputation do not guarantee success in the RFPL.

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2) Coaching is key

Lokomotiv and CSKA Moscow confounded expectations to finish 1st and 2nd respectively in the standings. Nobody in our team at RFN, let along the most optimistic Lokomotiv fan could have possibly envisioned the Railroaders having the season that they had. However, once Loko got on a roll, they just kept getting results like a finely oiled machine and sealed a superb title win with a 1-0 home victory against Zenit in the penultimate match of the season.

In Europe, CSKA flew the flag for the RPL. After navigating two Champions League qualification rounds, they were drawn in a group with Manchester United, Basel and Benfica. Whilst CSKA did only eventually finish 3rd, there were some positives, including home and away victories against Benfica, a victory away against Basel and a narrow 2-1 away defeat to Manchester United. CSKA then impressed in the Europa League post-new year defeating first Red Star Belgrade and then one of the tournament favourites, Lyon before succumbing to Arsenal in the Quarter Finals despite a valiant effort.

Good team-cohesion and coaching of players is more important than how big your budget is. Loko under veteran coach Yuri Semin used existing players in the fringes to fill gaps in their starting eleven. The best example of this was how 31-year-old right winger Vladislav Ignatiev, who only had only featured 24 times over the last two seasons at Krasnodar, made 24 appearances as a regular at right back. CSKA coach Viktor Goncharenko also made full use of his thin squad, Swedish defensive midfielder Pontus Wernbloom was used by Goncharenko as a striker or central defender when CSKA had problems with injuries or suspensions. Finally, Goncharenko made another masterstroke late in the season by giving 20-year-old striker Fyodor Chalov regular starts and the youngster repaid the faith with six goals in the last seven games.

Both clubs despite restrictions also used the transfer market superbly, Loko spent just €4.25 million in transfer fees on 2 new players, however, Georgian central defender Solomon Kvirkvelia and Polish full-back Maciej Rybus alongside veteran Igor Denisov, bought on a Bosman from Dinamo Moscow all performed superbly. CSKA spent even less than Loko, just €500,000 on 19-year-old Croatian midfielder Kristijan Bistrovic, however, the youngster is already showing signs he will be a perfect replacement for the aforementioned Wernbloom.

3) A bunched and competitive mid-table

Whilst ten points separated 5th placed Zenit and 6th placed FC Ufa in the standings, only eight points separated Ufa in 6th from Amkar in 13th. As a result of Russian Cup winners FC Tosno not applying for a UEFA license, sixth place became a Europa League qualification spot. Throughout the season, the identity of who would hold this place changed hands on a weekly occurrence. Ural made an impressive start to the season but faded badly after Christmas. This lead to a two-way fight between Ufa, led by their talented young coach, Sergey Semak and Arsenal Tula. Ufa held their nerve and a 5-0 victory over relegated Tosno on the final day secured European football for the first time.

Also noticeable was how many points were needed to avoid a relegation play-off. A 12th place finish would guarantee safety, and it was Ural on 37 points from 30 games who secured it. It fell to Amkar on 35 points to negotiate a two-legged playoff against Tambov, who finished 4th in the FNL. To compare and contrast, 35 points ensured a 10th placed finish in the 2016-17 season and 9th place in 2015/16.

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4) Room on the top floor? – Maybe not!

2017/18 also saw evidence that the gap between the top tier RPL and second tier FNL in Russia is perhaps widening. Three sides were relegated from the RPL, Anzhi though the playoffs and SKA Khabarovsk & Tosno automatically. For SKA and Tosno, who both won promotion to the top flight for the 2017/18 season, bridging the gap proved exceptionally difficult. SKA did not manage to take advantage of their location over 8,000 kilometres from Moscow for their home games finishing rock bottom with a miserly 12 points. Tosno never recovered from the loss of their two strikers Anton Zabalotny and Evgeni Markov who were sold in the winter transfer window, though they did win the Russian Cup after shocking Spartak Moscow in the semi-final.

Next season, three more clubs will all try their hand to bridge the gap between the two divisions. Two of these clubs, FC Orenburg and Krylia Sovetov Samara are returning to the RPL after one season away, whilst the 3rd club, Enisey Krasnoyarsk are making their league debut. Orenburg is owned by Gazprom subsidiary company Gazprom Dobycha Orenburg, however, they were relegated on their last appearance at this level just two years ago. Krylia has historically been a midtable RPL level club and with Samara being a World Cup host city, Krylia will have access to the 44,918 capacity Cosmos Arena post-World Cup. Siberia based Yenisey will have to contend with huge distances to travel for away games next season. Furthermore, their home ground will need upgrades to meet RFPL standards. Work may not be complete until the autumn and Yenisey may play some of their home games in Tyumen or Tomsk instead.

5) The emergence of promising, young coaches

Finally, we have seen the emergence of some promising young managerial talent this season. Even though he has been on the scene for a number of years now, CSKA’s Viktor Goncharenko is still only 40 and continues to enhance his reputation by overachieving with CSKA and their limited budget.

After sacking Igor Shalimov mid-season, 4th placed Krasnodar appointed highly-rated 34-year-old Murad Musaev as their new permanent manager. Musaev has coached Krasnodar’s youth and reserve teams or the last seven years and is very familiar with the systems at the club. Ufa’s Sergey Semak (41) continued to enhance his glowing reputation with a superb 6th placed finish which has seen him take over at former club Zenit St. Petersburg.

Dinamo Moscow’s 42-year-old Dimitri Khokhlov led them comfortably to mid-table security in 8th place and also got some brilliant performances out of young winger Alexander Tashaev, which saw him called up to the Russia national team for the World Cup. Finally, 43-year-old Ukrainian Dymtro Parfenov has been rewarded for his Russian Cup win with FC Tosno by being appointed new manager of Ural for next season.