Grizzly Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 nufc87 I would just like to say how much I appreciate that you took the time to post and display the extent of your ignorance of soccer and of the world in general. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nufc87 Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 Right Grizzly...perhaps its just my ignorance of obscure leagues and teams that I will never see actually play because there will be no televised matches in the western world. sorry I offended all the Russian football fans, I was just stating that I didn't understand a player making a move to a club that is a bottom dweller in a league that is no where near the strongest in Europe. Ante played for a team that would give him European experience whether it be Uefa cup or Champions league. but whatever, whooooo cares Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nufc87 Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 oh, and my Hartlepool United reference was purely sarcasm, I don't think of Hartlepool as a mighty club, although I reckon they will be in the championship by 2005 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jeffery S. Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 quote:Originally posted by Grizzly nufc87 I would just like to say how much I appreciate that you took the time to post and display the extent of your ignorance of soccer and of the world in general. Grizzly, I like many here really appreciate your evaluation of the strengths of the Russian league, which in any case would have to be okay just for the quality of Russian players, fan base, and money. But still it is hard to get our heads around the idea that this is really a step up from Austria; I still think the top four in Austria would be quite similar to the top equivalent in Russia, or if anything just a touch lower. Sure, maybe I am going on past reputation, could be an error. But having serious doubts about Krasnodar does not seem to be such a glaring example of ignorance. Just so you know that maybe some of us are thinking quietly and a bit more politely some of the things nufc87 has overstated. Maybe if they can stay up and get another season in top flight we'll think and feel differently. See they are drawing scoreless right now 2nd half.... Hey (adding this as an edit), why don't you do us all a favour and help us clear up this mess about Moscow teams? I think I as many end up just lumping CSKA, Lokomotiv, Dynamo, Spartak and the others into a big mish-mash and really don't differentiate them correctly. Could you do a quick rundown on them, which are stronger, which are the true powers now? And maybe indicate what are the better teams outside the Moscow area? Much appreciated it you have a moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 I don't have a problem with posters having doubts because they are not familiar with the league nor questioning player's moves or disagreeing with my opinion. What I do have a problem with is posters posting strong opinions on a subject when they obviously have little knowledge of the league, have not even bothered to look at where Krasnodar is on a map nor even read what has been posted on the topic on this forum (there has been quite a bit of information about the club and league posted on this board in the past two weeks on this and other threads). In summary, if you have some knowledge of a topic post and if I or others disagree with your opinion we can discuss or argue the point. If you don't know much about a topic then don't post strong opinions based on ignorance. For some reason the topic of Russia seems to produce an awful lot of ignorant opinions, particularly from people who have never been to Russia nor seen a Russian team play even on television. I don't notice the same reaction when I post about the Bundesliga or Germany, for example. Considering the extent to which it irritates Canadians that a large number of Americans have ill informed and ignorant views on Canada I don't think we should take a similar arrogant attitude to other countries. As far as nutc's posts go, Jazic told me he is not worried about the team relegating because of the number of new players they signed, a fact that has been mentioned frequently on the site including in this thread. However, even if they did relegate he would be better off playing in the Russian 2nd division than for Hartlepool. As far as being in a frigid wasteland, Jazic will be sunning himself on the beaches of the Black Sea while we are dealing with snow and the good citizens of Hartlepool are dealing with drizzle and grey skies. And Russia is one of the top leagues in Europe, I would rate it 6th after France and before Turkey (two leagues I have seen a lot of games of albeit only on tv). In fact, any player signing with a good, well balanced league is going to have relegation possibilities to deal with as DeGuzman did this year unless they sign for one of the top clubs which is rarely an option for your first contract. I have watched a fair number of Austrian games on tv as well and there is no doubt in my mind that the Russian league is far superior. The Austrian league always reminds me of the 2nd Bundesliga. The top four teams would be mid-table teams in the Russian league and lower table, relegation area teams in the Bundesliga. After the top four teams there is a big drop in playing level. I would not put GAK or Austria Vienna at the level of Lokomotive or CSKA Moscow. Last year GAK didn't even make it out of the qualification round for Champion's League while Lokomotive made it to the final 16 despite being in maybe the hardest group with English Champions Arsenal, Inter Milan and Dynamo Kiev. Then they were only eliminated on away goals against finalist Monaco after winning at home and losing in Monaco. This despite being the fourth place team in Russia in that year and being out of season when most of the games were played. Rapid Vienna might be a slightly stronger club than Kuban but the league level is far lower and with Rapid's budget cuts I doubt it will be stronger this year than Kuban is. The Russian league clubs are increasing their budgets while the Austrian clubs are reducing theirs. Russia is similar to Turkey in that soccer players can earn a lot of money there despite the low average wages of the population. As far as the Moscow teams go the first thing to know is that there are far too many of them. This is because the majority of Russian companies are headquartered in Moscow and the profits made in far eastern Vladivostok for example flow more into Moscow than the city where the work was done. Russian soccer is supported mostly by the sponsor companies and television revenue, when the average fan pays $2 to attend a match it doesn't pay much of the salaries. The number of clubs reduces the attendance in Moscow, most of the clubs average about 10 000 while the clubs outside of Moscow usually get 20 000 to 30 000 fans per game. There are six Moscow clubs while St.Petersburg with about 2/3 of Moscow's population has only one- Zenit. Most of the clubs were sponsored in non-capitalist Soviet times by a certain industry, factory or government agency. Some have kept this sponsorship where the company still has the money to be a sponsor (Lokomotive), some have kept the name but are no longer sponsored by the company (Shinnik which means auto-tires- a prominent industry in Yaroslavl) and some have found new sponsors (Dynamo who are no longer sponsored by the KGB as they no longer exist). A summary of the clubs Spartak: The biggest Russian club and the Moscow club with the most supporters and the worst hooligans. Everyone in Moscow either hates or loves them and everyone outside of Moscow hates them (everyone outside of Moscow hates all of the Moscow clubs but Spartak is the one they hate the most). They were quite strong a few years ago both in the Russian and Champions League but after a poor start last year mistakenly fired their legendary coach and replaced him with a young recently retired player who did not have any success and was also fired. Still seem to have some management problems as they certainly don't have budget problems. Finished 10th last year and are currently 13th only 2 points ahead of Kuban. Fans consider anything less than a championship to be a failure. If they got relegated it would probably lead to a national celebration. Used to play in the 80 000 seat field turf Luzniki but moved to smaller Torpedo stadium this year probably due more to the expense of playing in such a large stadium with 15 000 fans than to the turf. Lokomotive: As the name suggests they are sponsored by the Russian Rail. Unlike CSKA, have been very successful in European play even when they are not on top of the league. Well run club that plays in their own recently built modern stadium, not Moscow's largest stadium but probably the nicest. Finished 4th last year and are currently 5th. CSKA: Also known as (Central) Red Army, the soccer branch of the famed hockey club. The soccer club was not as dominant in the Soviet Union as the hockey club was. Not sure if they still have any connection with the army. Probably the most successful club in league play in recent years but this has not translated to success in European Cups. Won the championship last year and are currently in 3rd. Play in Dynamo stadium. Dynamo: Formerly sponsored by the KGB. Despite this they are probably the club that is least offensive to non-Moscovites, including myself. Seem to have a more working class following and have the best chants. Finished 6th last year and are currently 9th. Play in the large but older Dynamo stadium, if you prefer tradition over modern stadiums this is the best one in Moscow. FC-Moscow: Formerly known as Torpedo-Metalurg changed their name this year probably to avoid confusion with Torpedo. These two clubs were once one but split for reasons none of my friends understand, probably differing factions in management. FCM kept the stadium and most of the original tradition but the money seemed to go to Torpedo. Were saved from relegation last year by a victory in their last match and are currently in 12th. The stadium which they now share with Spartak is maybe the least nice of the Moscow stadiums but again has some tradition (Jazic plays Spartak here next Wednesday). Just to make everything confusing the stadium still has Torpedo written in the stands despite the club of that name playing in another stadium. Torpedo: Currently in first place, the surprise of the season, finished in 8th last year. Now the only team to play in the cavernous Luzniki stadium, great recently renovated stadium when full not so great with 10 to 15 000. Saturn: The team that made a lucrative offer for Atiba. Sometimes grouped with the Moscow clubs but play in another much smaller city about 100 km from Moscow that is part of the Moscow Oblast (loosely translated as Moscow county). New stadium and well financed club that is very ambitious and fires coaches a bit too quickly. Promoted by the political and economic rivalry between the city of Moscow and the Moscow Oblast. If they were to win the championship and best the Moscow clubs the governor of the oblast and the economic leaders would see this as tremendously prestigious and thus promote the club accordingly. Unlike the other clubs this club while old is a newcomer to playing high level soccer in Russia. If anyone is interested in watching Russian soccer, they are the only league I know that broadcasts games on the web usually on a several hour delay. They can be seen, usually on Saturdays at www.rtr-planeta.com Note that the schedule in the Russian language always lists when games will be shown while their English language schedule sometimes ommits them. They also have a picture of soccer players by the listing so you can tell what it is. There is usually a game at 8:00 am ET and sometimes at 4:00 pm ET. The low or middle speed feed seems to work better than the high speed one. Hopefully a couple of Kuban games will be broadcast this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 Forgot to comment on the strong non-Moscow teams. The only one that can come close to matching the budgets of the Moscow teams is Zenit St.Petersburg who are currently in 2nd which is where they finished last year. Soviet Wings Samara, Rubin Kazan and the club I support Shinnik Yaroslavl are well run and sometimes challenge for European play spots but don't have the money to be consistent title challengers. A Moscow club usually wins the title but the particular club that wins has varied a lot recently, the last three years have been Spartak, Locomotive and CSKA while Torpedo is currently in 1st place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachesl Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 quote:Originally posted by Grizzly I don't have a problem with posters having doubts because they are not familiar with the league nor questioning player's moves or disagreeing with my opinion. What I do have a problem with is posters posting strong opinions on a subject when they obviously have little knowledge of the league Your right Grizzly buddy, most of us are ignorant about Russia and many other Central and Eastern European soccer nations, and we shouldn't be. Thanks to you, we are learning. Slowly, but we're learning. Some of us are also learning, slowly, about paragraphs;). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luis_Rancagua Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 Grizzly, if you don't mind asking you, I am assuming that you are Russian. Is this correct??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 No I am Canadian not Russian. When I lived in Germany I had a Russian girlfriend for a while who was an exchange student. After a year in Germany she had to return to Russia so I started visiting her there. By the time we broke up I had learned some of the language and had quite a few friends so that is why I keep going back. Plus, I enjoy my time in Russia. Of course, I wouldn't want to live there if I was earning a typical Russian salary (about $150 a month) but if you save some money here and go over you can live pretty well. It is certainly the closest I have ever felt to being rich. If Jazic is making more money there than Rapid was paying him in Austria he will be doing pretty well, especially as once you are outside of Moscow things are pretty cheap. As far as soccer goes, I travelled quite a bit during my time in Europe and saw a lot of leagues live and on tv. In general, I find that outside the big 4 and France we overrate a lot of the European leagues because they are European. Many of the leagues have a couple of good teams and many poor teams while there are quite a number of leagues in which all the teams are mediocre. The Russian league is one of the few that I've seen that has a good overall level of play, the same teams don't win every year and you can see a lower table team play the first place team and still watch a good match. Plus it has a lot of very good players from eastern European, South American and African countries who are not well known in the west. In particular a lot of players from countries (in Africa for example) that were aligned with the Soviet Union tend to play there instead of the west partly because they were taught the language in school. It may be unusual for us because we think of players preferring to go to English, Spanish or Portugese speaking countries because they can understand the language but there is a large number of countries where Russian was taught in the schools because of their former political alignment and often in surprising areas of the world. In addition to the language issue there is a whole network of contacts between the clubs and leagues in these countries that is different from that in western Europe. The Russian league is not quite the 1st Bundesliga but is not so far from this level either and is improving every year. Another league I find that has a pretty good level of play is Turkey but it is dominated by the Istanbul clubs. However, the other clubs are not as weak as the lower clubs in many other countries. And yes I am learning to use paragraphs. Although I would prefer to claim that the lack of paragraphs was an intentional post modern style, they resulted mostly because I find it easy to forget them writing in the small response window where one doesn't realize how much one has written. However, after numerous complaints I am now making an effort to press the Tab key occasionally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jeffery S. Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 Well that summary was very interesting. I appreciate the time you put into it. As I said, there are long standing prejudices against certain leagues or just plain ignorance (in my case both), but having someone who can give a clear perspective sure helps. I get the sense that since the fall of communism most nations in the former East block are still needing time to sort out their soccer. We see former powers like Steauau Bucharest or Red Star Belgrade still a long way from getting back to being real movers in Europe. Perhaps there used to be privileged, banner teams that were used and supported by government or other insitutions for propoganda purposes. Once that breaks down the free market means that other clubs will rise to compete with them, and perhaps the leagues are tighter. I get the sense this is the case in Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria. And of course in the new nations like Ukraine. On the rsssf site, Russia domestic section, there is an interesting blurb about name changes in Russia and ownership shifts as well: "Saturn have dropped the name of their former sponsor, Ren TV. Spartak-Alania have reverted to their previous name, Alania. Moscow city administration has announced the creation of FK Moskva on the basis of Torpedo-Metallurg. Moscow mayor becomes the chairman of the stewardship council of the club, while the CEO of Norilsk Nickel company (which bought the club a year ago) becomes the president of the club. The name change became official on May 28." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 Moscow's mayor may be the second most powerful politician in Russia after Putin so if he is involved with FC Moscow they may become a power in Russian soccer. They are certainly better than they were last year. I do find it a bit strange that he would decide to involve himself in the smallest and weakest of the 6 Moscow teams although maybe that was his club growing up. One would think that the huge clubs like Spartak and Locomotive would have a lot of connections and be far more attractive to a politician. Of course if he turns FCM into a power he will be able to claim most of the credit himself. The loss of Ren tv as a Saturn sponsor is probably not positive for the club. The level of certain eastern countries soccer clubs has declined largely due to the loss of central control of the leagues. Certain clubs in most countries were favoured because the leaders wanted them to do well in international competitions. Thus the majority of top Bulgarian players for example would play on one or two teams. Now with the free market the best Bulagarians are playing in the west or Russia and the Ukraine and the remaining ones are spread more evenly among their league. The Ukrainian league is still a good level and those of Poland and Czech Republic have similar or only slightly lower levels than countries such as Austria and Switzerland. The south eastern leagues are not as strong although there are a few good clubs in the former Yugoslavian countries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 There are also a number of North American hockey players playing in Russia and from what I have read they are treated very well there. The team pays for their apartment, car, food and if they need anything else all they need to do is call and it will be done immediately. Therefore, the only real worries for the players is playing hockey. I would assume Russian soccer clubs do the same thing for their players especially foreigners and if they do then I can see why Russia may be starting to attract some foreign talent. By the way is Jazic the first North American player to play in Russia? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nufc87 Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 Cheers for clearing that up, I admit I may have come across as harsh in my first post, It wasn't my intension...Its just a friendly debate and I learned alot from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 No problem. Like I said, I don't mind debating something or having different opinions, I just think you have to make a little effort in learning about a topic before posting strong or harsh opinions. Hopefully Jazic will be successful in Russia and we will learn some more things about the Russian league just like we have about the Scandanavian teams with Canadians playing there. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BC supporter Posted July 5, 2004 Share Posted July 5, 2004 Grizzly -- I find your comments on Russia and the Russian league quite interesting. I hope when you're there you'll not only post info on Ante Jazic and Russian football, but also throw in the occasional anecdote about life in Russia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ed Posted July 5, 2004 Share Posted July 5, 2004 quote:Originally posted by Brian There are also a number of North American hockey players playing in Russia and from what I have read they are treated very well there. The team pays for their apartment, car, food and if they need anything else all they need to do is call and it will be done immediately. Therefore, the only real worries for the players is playing hockey. I would assume Russian soccer clubs do the same thing for their players especially foreigners and if they do then I can see why Russia may be starting to attract some foreign talent. By the way is Jazic the first North American player to play in Russia? Regarding your question, the Yanks Abroad list has a Greg Mulholland as a former player for Lokomotiv Moscow. The perks you talk about for hockey players in Russia are commonplace in Europe. There was some debate here about Oliver Occean signing in Norway. There is more to it than just the base salary. Anyone remember Kusch and his outrageous car he had with that club in Belgium, I think it was?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted July 5, 2004 Share Posted July 5, 2004 Kusch played one year with Mons in Belgium's third division with Steve Kindel and played with Mechelen the following season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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