Russian Football Championship: The results of the season
The Russian Championship ended on May 24 was the third, from starting to finish, which took place in the conditions of complete international isolation, and did not yield to the flagship, which constituted the so -called large European five – English, Spanish, Italian, German and French – in the level of intrigue and fascinating struggle in the tournament. However, for most other key indicators characterizing the quality of the tournament, the Russian Premier League (RPL) was, of course, far from them.
Champions
The current Russian championship forced to recall one of the once-attractive line that gives Sharm to any championship. He had it for quite some time – in those days when there were so many resources for his strongest clubs that they could fight for expensive players and with representatives of the Big Five, and to imagine that one day domestic football would suddenly be excommunicated from international competitions for a long time, it was completely unthinkable. This line is the “replacement” champions. The dominance of some club warms the soul of its fans, but for other consumers of a football product, a serious drawback. So, with dominance, sometimes obvious, one or two giants standing out among all giants, just the « big five » sinned. And in Russia from 2002 to 2018, gold went as many as five clubs – CSKA, Spartak, Rubin, Zenit and Lokomotiv. And none of them could linger at the top longer than the season.
But then this feature suddenly evaporated, giving up under the pressure of Zenit. The St. Petersburg club won six in a row of Russian championships, the first five in this long -lasting by the standards of almost any country of the series – with a margin, ahead of schedule.
In 2025, she finally broke off, and in Russia the seventh club appeared in his history, which managed to get the championship title. Moreover, a very pretty club, which is sprinting by football standards – over 17 years, if it was considered from the moment of its foundation, for 14, if you count from the moment of entering the elite division, reached the top not thanks to the one -time generous infusion of the owner or the sponsor’s affected by influential patrons, but painstaking and thorough work on building a brand. And this thoroughness allows us to rely on the fact that Krasnodar and after its triumph will save the potential that allows you to fight for gold.
Although in the « Big Five » everything was also curious. Longing is only in France and partly Spain. In the French championship, the PSG won gold for the fourth time in a row, which surpasses the closest pursuers to the head and for which the domestic championship seems to have turned into a warm -up before the champions League. In this draw, he reached her final, in which he will meet with Inter on May 31. In Spain, the victories of “Barcelona” and “Real” are regularly alternated. In 2025, the queue of the Catalans came.
But in other championships, the plots were quite exciting. In the Italian, the whole distance of Inter did not make Napoli. In German, his frontman “Bavaria” brilliantly rehabilitated over last year’s failure when she was forced to look up at the Bayer overturned from below. In English, after four championship seasons, Manchester City collapsed in third place, and the golden reward went to Liverpool.
The level of competition
The most obvious way to check how competitive the championship is, how high is the degree of struggle is to evaluate the density of its table. It is expressed in the separation of the one who leads it, from the one who closes. The Russian Championship has the density most often not bad, and the ended tournament did not become an exception, although he lost to his predecessor in all respects. In 2024, the Zenit did not score the first place and did not score two -thirds of the points standing at the stake, which took the last place of Sochi – almost 27%. Today, the leader’s indicators – “Krasnodar” – and the outsider – “torch” – is a little more routine, more everyday. But still, against the background of the « big five » they look beautiful, in it the tears are more solid.
However, a rush to awarding the Russian Bonus Championship for such an achievement is still not worth it because of an important reservation. He is more compact.
There are only 16 clubs in the Russian championship, not 20, as in England, Spain and Italy, or 18 in France and Germany. So the figures of “torch” is more correct to compare with the numbers, for example, the 16th team of the English championship. And she was Wolverhampton. And he scored three and a half times more points than the Southampton table below.
But in order to better understand the meaning of the reservation, it is advisable to take a closer look at the Wolvergempton, but to its neighbors. On a line above – the great Manchester United, which is experiencing a deep crisis, but recently performed in the final of the Europa League, the second in rank of the European Cup. And on the line below – “Tottenham”, Manchester in that finale, who beat and won a ticket to the Champions League. The compositions of both include many cool players from various teams.
But you can’t argue with is that the level of competition in the RPL was worthy.
Clarification is required only about outsiders. With those who fly out of the Premier League, clarity came somehow too early.
But on the upper floors there was a heat, what a “big five” did not dream of. In it, the only championship in which the Golden Race went to the finish line was Italian. “Liverpool”, “Barcelona”, “Bavaria” and PSG provided themselves with the titles ahead of time, and the Liverpools with the Parisians – a lot of time, four and six rounds before the end of the tournament.
And in Russia, again, as in 2024, the hunting for medals was extremely fascinating. Before the final round, Krasnodar from Zenit separated one single score, and the Krasnodar retained this supply. And behind them they cut for the bronze of CSKA, which received it, Spartak and Dynamo. Gorgeous story. At the same time, during the championship, the same Spartaks hinted at the championship ambitions, who, in fact, had the favorites, and even the Dynamo, and even finished the sixth Lokomotiv.
Degree of sensation
The delights of any championship are added by surprises of various shades. With them in the « Big Five », things were not bad. In England, as already mentioned, the collapse of Manchester United, Tottenham and – if you evaluate the performance specified by this club in the previous years by the standards – Manchester City, and Liverpool, despite the departure of Jurgen Klopp and the arrival of a new mentor without exemplary and reliable background – Arne – Arne – Arne – Arne – Arne – Arne – Arne – Arne – Arne – Slot, appeared as a luxurious team. In Italy, the phenomenal Renaissance survived Napoli, in 2024, which collapsed into the basement of the top-tench. In Germany, the bronze gnaw “Aintracht”, which did not look like a contender for great achievements. In Spain, she sharply handed over to Girona, which in the season, preceding this, managed to polish and lagged behind only from Real Madrid with Barcelona.
In Russia, all surprises were relative. For example, the RPL beginners were surprised. Akron climbed in ninth place on the move. The Makhachkala Dynamo became the 11th, but, in any case, it is even higher than the « zone of butt matches. » “Krasnodar”, of course, also surprised. But his championship, strictly speaking, does not pull on a full sensation. It is strange in such a vein to talk about the club, which actually fought for gold before the finish ribbon in 2024, and silver earned as a reward.
Entertainment
The factors that largely depend on the attractiveness of the football championship include the volume and effectiveness of attacking actions. The most accessible to it is the number of heads clogged in it. Once the average effectiveness in the Russian championship was such that foreigners unfamiliar with it, seeing the data, could decide that participants in this championship are prohibited by the regulations to conclude contracts with forwards. There is simply no one to hit the gate regularly. Then, for several years, the average performance slowly grew up until, after the thermonuclear explosion that happened a couple of years ago, it didn’t go through the mark of three goals, which used to be Russian fans of the attacking style and could not dream. But it turned out that in the RPL the trend for open football penetrated, and the teams accustomed to close in their half are less and less.
In the previous championship, she, however, fell, but not so significant as to sound the alarm – to “normal” indicators that are not ashamed to compare with the “large five” indicators. In the current season, the average performance rose a little – to 2.7 goals per game. In the two championships of the « Big Five » – Spanish and Italian – it was lower, in English and French – higher, but not much. There is one Germany far ahead.
With whom in the RPL it is still unimportant, it is with the top-class scorers. There are few players with such skills. Most of the goals in the championship in the assets of Spartak Manfred Ugalde – 17. This is four more than the leader of last year’s bombardier race of Zenitz Mateo Kascerra. In the « Big Five », her leaders hit the gate much more often.
The effectiveness of the championship often directly affects – of course, positively – – at the attendance, which in the championship of Russia after the home world championship 2018 grew constantly and rather stormy pace. But then the growth stopped, and the reverse process went. At first, anticoronaviral restrictions were subcutaneous, and then – not accepted by fans, but everywhere introduced FAN ID. It got to the point that in the season a year before last for the matches of the Russian championship went on average less than 10 thousand people.
From this point of view, the championship ended at the weekend is like a breakthrough. According to its results, the average attendance went off scale for 12 thousand spectators. This is even more than the RPL recorded in 2022, before the introduction of FAN ID. It seems that domestic football functionaries still more or less correctly calculated the consequences of integrating a complex tool into a sports landscape. Well, yes, for some time he will repel the audience, but at the same time there will be adaptation to it, “replacing” the newcomers who have retired – for example, those ideal fans who are unfamiliar with the fan hardcore who go to the stadium with the whole family and vigorously use all the services provided by clubs and arenas, increasing the income of Matchday.
Financial stability
Before the sanctions in 2022, the RPL lost the status of a league, which, in terms of the scale of ambitions and resources, is not averse to competing with the « large five ». And the removal from international football, of course, could not help her rejoice to the leading championships. In general, if we talk about money, then the “big five” is already somewhere in space. And the difference between her and RPL clearly illustrates the total transfer value of league players, according to Transfermarkt. At the Russian championship, it is almost four times lower than that of the least rich among championships, French-French (see certificate). The receipts of the giants of European football, heading the Deloitte Money League rating, ranking the income clubs – “Real”, “Manchester City”, PSG, “Barcelona”, “Bavaria”, “Liverpool” – such that any of them, ascended, could take the entire Russian league if desired.
But that is not the bad moment. In the current decade, it seemed that Russian clubs had finally learned how to live in the means. It used to be annually in the RPL financial dramas, tragedies and embarrassment, because of which they lost the ability to survive in it or at least get angry for survival, including clubs with a decent reputation at first glance, and a more or less sonorous name.
The victims of immoderate appetites, illiterate management, addiction to funds from regional budgets – Saturn, Amkar, Alania, Moscow, Anji – one after another disappeared in the bowels of the football landscape.
But since 2021, after the crash of Tambov, the situation has undergone radical metamorphoses. No more problematic clubs, no fatal salaries and threats of strikes. One would think that the Russian football economy successfully passed the healing course. But after four prosperous years, the symptoms returned.
In the list of key topics of the season – those related to commercial troubles. The “wings of the Soviets” discovered not repaid debts to Rostec on an astronomical amount for a provincial club for 1 billion rubles. Everyone learned about Khimki that their players did not pay for months, and the sources of financing the team will not be found in the afternoon with fire. « Wings » seemed to be a way out. In Khimki, so that they would not star at the end of the championship, RPL had to introduce “external control”. However, they still lost their license for the next season, as well as claiming a breakthrough in the elite from the second Division of the Chernomorets. Reading this news, it was funny to recall that no, no in the Russian football community resumed talks about the expansion of the Premier League. It seems that she did not grit to him.
