Transfer Deadline Day: Life Imitates Football Manager

As the transfer window to end all transfer windows enters its final hours, David Wild looks at some of the recent splurges inspired by Football Manager…

Oscar Wilde once said that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”. While he probably wasn’t directly aware of Football Manager at the time he said this, his phrase is just as poignant today when applied to the realms of the Summer transfer window and the popular management simulation game.

Only last week I set up a group LAN Football Manager game in which a friend of mine immediately set about slicing up his Man United squad in order to purchase Bale and Neymar. In many games you can happily snap up four or five of the best young up and coming players of the future, or the big stars of the here and now in one window and watch the resulting team steamroller all before it in the fashion of a rampaging George Elekobi.

But are such crusades, hell bent towards the mass accumulation of talent, bound solely to the realm of Football Manager? More and more we are seeing the real transfer window imitate our own visionary virtual planning; teams snapping up high quality in high quantity.

We can relate to the excitement of such a squad building exercise as it calls out to the Football Manager fetishist within us. We’ve known about these players and their potential for years in advance. Some of them were just 16 year old wonderkids playing in the Finnish leagues when our scouting network picked them up. Continue reading

Why I Love The Russian Premier League

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Originally hailing from Ohio, USA, Russian Football NewsAndy Shenk isn’t your average Russian football expert. He tells all about the source of his love for the people’s game in the Eurasian “motherland”…

I made the mistake a few years back of falling in love with a foreign sports league. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the Russian Premier League, but rather that I now belong to that weird, vaguely-defined “hipster” crowd. I spend my time on Twitter talking about Shirokov, Ozbiliz, Tagirbekov, and Sapogov, Kuban’s Europa League chances and Volga’s campaign to avoid relegation. Oh, and I bought skinny jeans to look like everyone else in Moscow.

It’s bad. I’ve detached from baseball games in the summer and hoops in the winter to embrace a league that probably no more than half a dozen people from my home state of Indiana could discuss intelligibly. What’s worse, almost every Russian I’ve shared my obsession with thinks I’m either crazy or cute…anything but serious. Continue reading

Zenit St Petersburg Will Three-Peat

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Andy Shenk reports on how Zenit St. Petersburg are about to complete a hattrick of Russian Premier League titles for Russianfootballnews.com

Forget the talk about CSKA and Anzhi knocking Zenit from their perch atop Russian football. Despite an early-season slump which saw Zenit pick up five points from five matches between August 25 – September 29, brought on in part by squad turmoil after the flashy Hulk and Witsel signings, St. Petersburg’s flagship club will nip CSKA on the final day of the season thanks to a superior head-to-head record. That’s right, on May 26, Zenit and CSKA will finish with 66 points apiece, eight clear of Anzhi, but Zenit’s 3-1 away win to CSKA last August will be the difference as the men in sky blue celebrate a third-consecutive Premier League crown after wrapping up a win on Amkar Perm’s artificial pitch, 1,500 kilometers from home. Cue the confetti for Zenit’s Italian maestro Luciano Spalletti.

In the first Russian Premier League season to be contested on a fall-spring schedule, five different teams have topped the table, Zenit, Spartak, Terek, CSKA and Anzhi. Yet it is CSKA that have been the undisputed favorites since passing Anzhi on October 28 for 1st place in the league, a spot they’ve yet to relinquish. The Army Men’s balance is easily noted by league bests in goals scored (44) and goals conceded (19).  Eight points up on Zenit with seven matches to play, CSKA’s 4th title in 11 years, and 1st since 2006, appeared wrapped up, but recent draws with rival Moscow clubs Spartak and Dinamo have allowed Zenit to close the gap to four points. With the late-season schedule favoring the challengers, CSKA fans are due for heartbreak. Continue reading

CSKA’s Love Too Much for Alania: Russian Premier League Weekend Wrap

Back to Russia with Love.

Back to Russia with Love.

The False Nine’s Russian correspondent Andy Shenk rounds up the action from Week 22 of the Russian Premier League…

With eight games to play, CSKA Moscow’s 4-0 drubbing of Alania in Vladikavkaz pulled the Army Men eight points clear of the pack in the race for the 2012/2013 Russian Premier League title. It’s been six and a half years since the club won its last domestic title and just as long of a championship drought for the Russian capital.

On Monday night in North Ossetia, the visitors made short work of Valery Gazzaev’s revamped roster. Alan Dzagoev, who originally hails from the North Caucasus republic, knocked in Vagner Love’s rebound in the 25th minute to cool off an energetic home side. He completed his brace with another goal in the second half. This was Love’s third match back since rejoining CSKA from Flamengo of Brazil, having previously played for the club between 2004 and 2011. Doumbia rounded out the scoring in extra time after comical defending by Bosnian defender Ogjnen Vranjes. Continue reading

Russian Football in Like a Lion

SOGAZ-RFPLThe False Nine’s Russian correspondent Andy Shenk rounds up the action from Week 21 of the Russian Premier League…

When the Russian Premier League resumed play on March 8, following the winter break, the table was split into three distinct groups. Three clubs had risen above the pack, CSKA, Anzhi and Zenit, separated by five points in the chase for the title and one of two Champions League spots. Beginning with Kuban, Terek and Spartak, all clumped six points beneath 3rd-place Zenit, another seven teams enjoyed an excellent chance at snagging one of Russia’s four Europa League places, awarded to clubs 3rd-5th in the league as well as the winner of the Russian Cup. Continue reading

Russia’s Under-21 Squad Set for Euro 2013

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Ahead of Russian Under-21s versus Norway Under-21s in Spain tonight, The False Nine’s Russian correspondent, Andy Shenk, looks at the positive progress made by Russia’s young charges in an important decade for the country…

Yekaterinburg, population 1.3 million, gave Russia’s Under-21s a hearty Siberian welcome last winter, playing host to their final Euro 2013 qualifying matches. On September 6 and 10 more than 17,000 fans roared in approval as the team handled Poland 4-1 and drew with Moldova 2-2 to move top of their group. Several weeks later, in the return leg of their play-off tie with the Czech Republic, the Russians drew 2-2, securing the 2-0 advantage established in Jablonec nad Nisou a few days earlier to advance to Europe’s Under-21 Football Championship for the first time since 1998. Continue reading

The CIS League: Political Football in the Soviet Union

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Think Russia has given up on all to do with the USSR? Think again. False Nine Russian correspondent, Andy Shenk, assesses the aims and implications of a proposed CIS league gaining popular support from leading Russian clubs and courting controversy with the RFS, most of Ukraine and a certain Sepp Blatter…

FIFA President Sepp Blatter dealt potential breakaway Russian clubs and their plans for a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) football league a harsh blow on January 20: “FIFA is not interested at all in this competition… Competitions between them [clubs] take place within the framework and under the control of the national associations, within the borders of their country and association. That is the fundamental principle.” Continue reading