Russian Premier League: 9 things you should know about Matchday 31

1. Laser pointers ban

The Russian Football Union continues to impose restrictions on local fans. After fireworks, bananas, and foul language the time came for laser pointers that caused so much trouble for goalkeeper Andrey Dikan a week ago. Obviously, the whole idea will only result in an increased number of disparaging banners in the stands of Spartak Moscow fans, but at least we have an opportunity to see what Sergey Fursenko’s signature looks like that. Original, huh?

2. Boussoufa sent off

Upon being voted among the best foreign players in the first part of the Russian transitional football season, Mbark Boussoufa began a completely new life immediately after its second part began. During the match against Zenit St. Petersburg the Moroccan earned one of the earliest (and maybe even the earliest) red cards in the history of the Russian championships. At first, he got a delayed yellow card for a foul on Roman Shirokov, and in less than a minute he kicked the ball towards referee Yeskov, hitting him just above the place where a human back usually has its end.

Despite the fact that even the commentators supported Boussoufa, Yeskov was adamant. Don’t mess with the referees.

3. Ichkeria flag among Anzhi fans

The supporters of Anzhi used to be very much offended by the banners of Zenit fans bearing the Odal rune. After almost four months later, the residents of Makhachkala came to St. Petersburg and put the flag of the unrecognized breakaway Chechen republic in their sector of the stands. That is the fact, while its interpretations may vary: RPL head Sergey Cheban, for example, called it «tomfoolery and self-assertion of a certain group of individuals», while the spokesman of the Wild Division, Anzhi’s supporters group, blamed it all on the ethnic Chechens supporting the club at away matches.

4. Anchorman’s hairdo

Luciano Spalletti is so incredibly charming that each additional mention of him being charming seems to add nothing new to his image. However, the Italian refuses to stop and continues to win the majority of Russian fans. This time the head coach of Zenit used the haircut of NTV Plus anchor Alexey Andronov to get in another dig at his Spartak Moscow counterpart Valery Karpin: «If you want to blame someone else, you may do it. I think you have a hairstyle that fits perfectly for that.»

And there’s really have something in common, don’t you think?

5. Seydou Doumbia’s new experience

While everyone has been anticipating Doumbia to beat Oleg Veretennikov’s absolute goalscoring record (little wonder as this season has 44 matchdays), there is another surprising achievement that now belongs to the Ivorian – the number of open play goals. All of his 23 goals Seydou scored without a single kick from to the penalty spot. But here came Matchday 31, a new life began (see section 2), and Seydou decided to try himself in a new capacity executing three penalties in the game against Rubin Kazan despite the fact that CSKA’s usual penalty kicker Sergey Ignashevich was available for the whole 90 minutes.

Doumbia’s first strike hit the target, the second did the same, but the referee asked him to repeat it, after which the third one went over the crossbar.

His first half goal became the only one for CSKA in the match that ended in a victory for Rubin. But that wasn’t the whole story…

6. Vladimir Gabulov’s blooper

Gabulov arrived off the boat and right into the party in the summer in order to replace CSKA’s injured goalie Igor Akinfeev in the starting lineup and really saved his temporary new team on several occasions (e.g. against Lille and Spartak Nalchik), but this time (oh, the wonderful new life!) he made a serious gaffe.

…Alexander Ryazantsev earned his reputation of a long-range goalscorer after a single goal. Not that he hasn’t got a good shot and his goal past Victor Valdes at Camp Nou was just a stray bullet, but in the 61th minute of the game against CSKA that reputation worked for him. Vladimir Gabulov let the ball into his net failing to catch it after quite an easy strike, and CSKA once again missed out on a chance to catch up with Zenit who lost their points at home against Anzhi.

7. Evil genius of Lokomotiv Moscow

The game of Matchday 29 against Lokomotiv Moscow became the highlight of Emmanuel Emenike’s short Russian career. The Nigerian sent three goals into the Railwaymen’s net and made the public talk about himself in an extremely rapturous tone. Three weeks and two rounds later Emenike reappeared in the starting lineup against Lokomotiv and scored a double already by halftime. Joyful Spartak president Leonid Fedun told reporters Emenike is one of the most talented forwards in the Russian Premier League, his teammate Nico Pareja mentioned Emenike’s growing authority within the team, while the hero of the night modestly stated his partners have done everything they could to set him up for the two goals. Former Spartak defender Andrey Ivanov who joined Lokomotiv this summer suggested Emenike could possibly fail to score any more goals against the Red-and-Greens for the next five years. That’a quite a hard thing to believe in.

8. Possible changes to foreigners’ limit

On Sunday, Sergey Fursenko said he heard the pleas of the clubs on the foreign players’ limit, which seems to hinder growth and development of the local footballers, and expressed willingness to relax the existing restrictions in case the clubs suggest other measures allowing young players to have enough first team football.

Still, most decisions of the RFU president aren’t really hailed outside his office. FC Krasnodar defender Fyodor Kudryashov invited the officials who had decided on the switch to the new calendar to visit the cold stadium during his team’s next game at Tom Tomsk, while the fans of Nizhny Novgorod simply thanked Sergey Anatolyevich for his efforts («The summer is gone, the winter has come, you should thank Fursenko for that»).

9. Miguel Danny’s address

Despite our usual attempts to talk about the matchday’s events with our tongue in our cheek (just because it’s quite hard to talk about Russian football otherwise), we’d like to ask you to take the next video seriously. After all, there’s still a chance that some of you can save a child’s life. Miguel Danny has the floor.

by Nikita Koroteyev