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One October evening two years ago in Tula, a city of 500,000 two hours south of Moscow, 15,000 fans headed to Arsenal Stadium for a star-studded veteran’s match. The local club, Arsenal, had a rich history, but very few achievements since its founding in 1946. Banished to the amateur leagues since 2006 due to lack of funding, few in the stands that night could have guessed that 15,000-strong crowds would be a common occurrence at Arsenal Stadium just a couple of years later…

When you live in Moscow, it’s easy to forget about the rest of the country. But half an hour after jumping in a taxi van on Moscow’s south side, my wife and I are rolling through the dusty Moscow Region countryside, headed for Tula, an ancient city 180 km south of Moscow, famed for its weapons industry, samovars and “pryaniki” (honey-cakes).

Most of the weapons factories have closed, but for Tula natives, their legacy lives on in the local football team, FC Arsenal. Abandoned financially and sputtering along in the amateur leagues from 2006-2011, Arsenal have burst back into life over the past two years. The fans come in droves, drawn by a team that hasn’t lost an official match since July 16, 2012 and sits first in Russia’s second tier of football, the Football National League, 10 matches into the 2013/2014 season. It doesn’t hurt that legendary Spartak, Porto and Roma midfielder Dmitri Alenichev mans the sidelines.

Unsure of where our taxi van will end up in Tula, Nikki and I look out on the city from the front seat. Tram tracks litter downtown, clogging car traffic. The buildings are haphazard, the usual mix of czarist Russia, Soviet and modern Russian architecture. After half an hour of meandering through town, I pick out the main gates to the stadium in the distance and we jump out of the van. The pitch and bleachers are obscured behind the entrance to the complex, but once inside the gates, we see the low-slung arena a few hundred yards away. The seats are bright colors, the field even and bright green. And almost every fan in attendance will be covered by the overhanging roof. Not your typical small-town football arena in Russia.

In fact, Arsenal experienced a small boom in the 1990s. Local businessman and club president Viktor Sokolovsky financed a major stadium renovation, which, when completed in 1996, made it one of the best facilities in Russia. At the time, Arsenal were still stuck in Russia’s third tier, but they would gain promotion to the second tier in 1998 and regularly draw crowds of 10-15,000 over the next few years. Though Arsenal never advanced to the top flight during that time, the stadium was rated highly enough for Russia to host Belarus here in a 1999 international friendly.

Tonight, three away fans are in the stands to cheer on Arsenal’s opponent, Neftekhimik, second-last in the league, hailing from Nizhnekamsk, located 1,300 kilometers east of Tula by car. Nothing’s easy in the Football National League – the schedule, travel, and antiquated conditions can wear everyone out quickly. Teams in the FNL play 36 matches per season, six more than the Premier League, and the schedule is made even worse due to Russia’s lengthy winters. Forced to go on break in November, several weeks before the Premier League does, and resuming in early March, the FNL holds its matches every five days, 38 matchdays, with two bye weeks for each of the 19 clubs.

After the match, seated at the front of Arsenal’s long, spacious press center, head coach Dmitri Alenichev admitted to the club’s fatigue: “The team doesn’t look fit. We need time to prepare the team for physical fitness. But it’s normal, nothing too terrible.”

He has some valid excuses for the team’s current condition. Arsenal finished Second Division play on June 5, then kicked off the new season a meager 32 days later. A major roster overhaul to prepare the club for the bigger budgets and stiffer competition in the FNL further complicated matters in the preseason. And in the weeks to come, Arsenal face back-to-back trips to Vladikavkaz and Kaliningrad, both of whom boast competitive clubs, Alania and Baltika, respectively, and are raring for a place in the Premier League next season.

But for the Tula fans, it all must feel like a dream… Coming into Friday night, they led the league by five points, unbeaten, with an even more impressive +16 goal differential. 22 goals in 9 matches or twice more than other club in the league, outside of 18-goal Mordovia.

Tula shows its appreciation by making Arsenal Stadium the most feared venue in the league. 15,400 showed up for a 1-0 win over Ufa a few weeks back. Tonight, the crowds are even bigger (16,800), with the stadium entrances clogged for the ten minutes of the match. Only the South stand doesn’t fill up, along with the first rows of the North stand, located behind the two goals.

Next to the press box, you can’t find an empty seat anywhere. Fans even line the top of the bleachers and the aisle dividing journalists from fans, meaning I frequently have to crane my neck to follow the action in front of the North stand goal.

Neftekhimik coach Rustem Khuzin, in charge of Premier League club Amkar Perm most of last season, doesn’t hide his admiration for the atmosphere later that night: “You don’t see this type of support for teams in the FNL. Sometimes you had the feeling that that the two teams were playing in the Premier League.” In fact, Arsenal’s attendance (14,160 on average) so far this season would place it 9th in the 16-team RPL, an outstanding achievement given that average attendance in the FNL is a meager 4,063.

How did Arsenal get to this point so quickly? Did Boris Gryzlov, the powerful United Russia politician who organized that veteran’s match two years ago that kick-started the club’s revival, sprinkle magic dust in the October air? Or, for the cynical, is it logical to assume Arsenal made its move by more devious means?

I don’t have all the answers, but the story told now in Tula always goes back to two men – head coach Dmitri Alenichev and Tula governor Vladimir Gruzdev. The latter, a 46-year-old politician and billionaire businessmen, was put in charge of Tula region in summer 2011 and took the club under his personal care following that giddy October 2011 exhibition match. Though Arsenal’s coffers are not exactly overflowing, Gruzdev’s financial guarantees mean players receive regular bonuses and the club can feel reasonably confident about making the step up to the ludicrously expensive Premier League.

Along with Gryzlov, Gruzdev’s support is a big reason Arsenal were able to attract Alenichev to Tula and keep him happy here. The Russian football legend spent several years in politics after retirement, but was, in his own words, itching for a return to football. He joined Arsenal at Gryzlov’s encouragement in November 2011, while they were still in the amateur division and quickly led them to the pros, helped by a cohort of former Spartak teammates that first season.

Two years in, Alenichev is clearly the genius behind Arsenal’s success on the field. Hailed as a consummate professional by everyone asked to describe him, he has created a goal-scoring machine of a team, gambling on just 3 defenders, coupled with 2 forwards up front.

One of the team’s regular strikers, Evgeny Savin, was convinced by Alenichev to join the team last winter in the 2nd Division. Despite former stints at Lokomotiv and Krylia Sovetov, Savin agreed to a $3,300/month salary for the remainder of the 2012/2013 season and started living at the club’s training grounds in order to fully commit to the team. The one luxury Savin allowed himself? – a contract clause that would allow him to leave Tula if Alenichev took a job elsewhere.

Throughout the match, I try to keep one eye on the Arsenal bench. Alenichev is calm, even as his men get off to a shaky start, nearly conceding and missing several scoring opportunities. He hardly moves from his seat in the first half. Later, he’ll occasionally cross the running track dividing him from the pitch to offer individual players instructions.

The crowd, though, is nowhere near as reserved. Savin and midfielder Sergei Ignatiev’s brushes with the goal in the first 10 minutes bring thousands up out of the bleachers, their voices ready to explode if the ball finds the back of the net. Soon after, with the play somewhat subdued, the wave starts up for the first time, stretching 3-4 times around the stadium. Every 15-20 minutes, it returns with equal vigor, highlighted for me by a young boy at the bottom of the press box, who jumps up and down each time, Arsenal scarf raised above his head.

After the initial flurry – Neftekhimik forward and Ecuador native Valter Chala even hits the crossbar from 35 yards out – the match quiets down until the 35th minute. Savin is working hard in the box, but can’t quite reach his teammates’ crosses. Fellow forward Aleksandr Kutin, with 10 goals already this season, is mostly invisible, as the opposition swarms him as soon as he touches the ball.

Then, out of nowhere, Kutin makes the home crowd delirious with his league-leading 11th strike. A mad scramble in the Neftekhimik box leaves the ball at his feet and he pounds it home, before charging off to celebrate with his teammates.

For the rest of the half, Arsenal coast. The crowd is content, confident in its team, while Arsenal seem happy with the advantage. But a late whistle in the Arsenal box snaps the stadium from its brief slumber. Referee Sergei Kulikov points at the spot for a foul on Chala and David Dzakhov puts the visitors even in the waning seconds of the half.

By the time the second half gets underway, the sun has sunk deep into the Tula horizon, giving our East stand some relief and over the final 45 minutes the air will cool quickly.

On the field, Arsenal waste no time fixing matters. Off a throw-in, Kutin lofts the ball into the center of the box, despite having his back to the goal. Unmarked by the Neftekhimik defenders, midfielder Dmitri Smirnov charges the cross and heads home past a helpless Yuri Nesterenko. It’s pandemonium once again at Arsenal Stadium. Banners and flags wave, scarves twirl and the crowd belts out Smirnov’s last name three times at the prompting of the PA.

Though both teams enjoy several more chances in the second half, the scoring in this match is complete. By Arsenal standards, the victory is workmanlike. No wonder goals from Kutin or Savin, or a 5-0 drubbing, as the fans have almost come to expect. But there’s no doubt the crowds will be back in September when Luch-Energiya comes to town, and in the months to come, as the competition to snag a Premier League spot and bring clubs like Spartak, CSKA and Zenit to Tula next season heats up.

The giddy prospect of big-time football is clearly on everyone’s mind, anyway, including head coach Alenichev, one of the few Russian men to have won a Champions League title (Porto, 2004). As the post-match press conference winds down, someone asks Dmitri what the club’s approach will be to the Russian Cup, which opens for Arsenal on September 1. No one believes him at first when he says it’s to advance as far as possible, but when he backs up the claim by asking the journalists in turn if they want Spartak to come to Tula, you can see the fire in his eyes.

Truly, Alenichev’s the perfect fit for this suddenly football-mad city and audaciously successful team. After climbing the heights of European football as a player, he’s returned to the roots of the game, guiding his men from the amateur ranks to this point in August 2013, where he can joke about a Cup clash with the reigning champions CSKA or his former club, 11-time Russian champions, Spartak.

Everyone knows that Alenichev will one day, probably sooner rather than later, move on to bigger challenges. His maximalist approach and thirst for competition are the very qualities that will eventually land him at one of Russia’s biggest clubs, or, potentially, in Western Europe where he thrived in the past. But he’s here right now, Tula’s hero for as long as he wishes to stay. Together, they can dream of the Premier League and the thrill of Russian football’s finest taking the field at Arsenal Stadium. You can bet the excitement in the arena, should that come to pass, will dwarf anything Tula’s experienced so far.