As not many of you will know, the Russian Premier League kicks off tomorrow evening 5pm UK time with Rubin Kazan hosting Spartak Moscow and i'm here to preview it.
A few seasons ago this would have been billed as a potential title clash, with both sides striving to reach the pinnacle of Russian football, however due to their recent poor season it is shaping up to be more of a mid table clash than anything else.
Spartak Moscow are without a doubt one of the biggest team in Russian history. Since their formation in 1922 the 'myaso' (meat, don't ask why that's their nickname because your guess is as good as mine!) have won 12 Soviet Championships, second only to Ukraine's Dynamo Kyiv and 10 Soviet cups. Couple this with the 9 out of 19 Russian championships and 3 Russian cups that they've won and you can see that Spartak are a very prestigious club.
However, in the last season Spartak finished 6th and haven't won the Russian Premier League since 2001. So where did it go wrong? At the start of the century Spartak were managed by Oleg Romantsev, also club president, however he fell out with many charismatic players who were also some of Spartak's best players. The result was that many of them left Spartak, couple this with the fact that Romantsev became embroiled in a conflict with the person he sold his stock in Spartak to, Andrei Chervichenko in 2003 and Spartak became less and less of a force. In 2003 the club actually finished 10th out of 16 teams in the Premier League, their worst campaign to date. New owners have tried to restore the 'мyaso' to their past glory but it seems that Romantsev's and Chervichenko's dispute has left the club reeling, even 10 years on.
To their credit Spartak do have some decent players, but they don't perform to their full capability. Jose Manuel Jurado, Yura Movsisyan and Roman Shirokov are to mention just 3 of their best players, but Spartak have a side who are immensely talented. Following the sacking of old manager Valeri Karpin after huge underperformance it is yet to be seen if Spartak's squad will live up to their capabilities.
Rubin Kazan are on the complete other end of the spectrum to Spartak Moscow. The 'Tatary' (Tatars) played their first ever season in the RPL as recently as 2003. In 2008 they won their first league title, followed by another in 2009. Since then it's been all down hill for Rubin. Consecutive 6th place finishes in 2011-12 and 12-13 were followed up by a 9th place finish in 2013-14.
What wrong wrong with Rubin? In a nutshell, nothing. Many people believe that Rubin just didn't ever possess the pulling power of the main Moscow teams and Zenit St Petersburg and as a result of this have just stagnated into a mid table side with no chance of going down but with no real chance of challenging for a title.
When you look at Rubin's squad it is nowhere near as star studded as Spartak's. Not many stars in the team and possibly their biggest player, Yann M'Vila has just joined Inter Milan on a season long loan. New striker Marko Livaja along with older teammates such as Marko Devic, Wakoso Mubarak, Chris Mavinga and Roman Eremenko must be on top form throughout the season in order for Rubin to have any chance of qualifying for Europe.