FK Krasnodar: From Russia with Love

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union and the foundation of the Russian Premier League in the early ’90s, football in the world’s biggest country has been dominated by 3 clubs; Spartak Moscow, CSKA Moscow and Zenit Saint Petersburg. All three have a long history, incredible wealth and are all recognisable teams outside of Russia. With Lokomotiv Moscow winning just their third league title last campaign and an incredibly influential World Cup hosted by the Russians in the summer — perhaps the mould is finally breaking in Eastern European Football. Despite Zenit currently sitting top of the table going into the long winter break, they are leading by just a point and are closely followed by FK Krasnodar; the fresh kid on the block.

Founded in 2008, The Bulls charged through the Third South Division, straight into the 2nd and in 2011 competed in the Premier League for the first time. After various managers and ending just short of the Champions League qualification spaces, Krasnodar are currently going through their best season since their establishment; scoring more goals than anyone else and, under Murad Musaev, playing some effective football whilst doing so. Musaev never made it as a professional footballer but has been part of the club since 2011; managing the academy teams before being appointed as caretaker manager prior to the firing of Igor Shalimov.

Despite being just 35-years-old, Musaev is showcasing the knowledge and leadership of a manager much more experienced than he is, Krasnodar are performing extremely well, creating a lot of chances and being 100% ball-orientated throughout the game. What’s most interesting about Musaev is that he currently only holds a UEFA B Coaching Licence, but his tactics certainly show a manager much more advanced.

On the pitch, Krasnodar bounce between two formations; the 433 and the 4231, which are the ball-orientated/possession-based formations, used by a lot of the top clubs in Europe that maintain the ball. Not only do you instantly have width, but you also have overloads in the midfield and wide channels to give your team the advantage. The Bulls are dominant in possession, tallying up and average of 59.8% possession in their league games which is nearly 5% above anybody else.

In the 4231, defensive midfielder and the conductor of the team, Yuri Gazinskiy stays deep, playing as a “regista”, the ball often running through him. His partner is often Mauricio Pereyra, who often makes runs forward and supports the attacks forward. Both wingers Viktor Claesson and Wanderson play slightly different roles to each other, Claesson often drops inside occupying the half-space whilst Wanderson consistently makes runs behind the defensive line and also occupies between the lines. In the 433, Charles Kabore will come into the team; providing more solid defensive numbers than Gazinskiy and Pereyra do.

Defensively, the centre-back spots are filed by Aleksandr Martynovich and Uros Spajic. Both men are well experienced, and both are comfortable at passing the ball out from the back. They feed their full-backs consistently and very rarely turn around and play the ball back to their goalkeeper.

What makes Krasnodar’s possession game so impressive, is that they control the game in the opposition’s third and not their own — they have the smallest percentage of action zone being used in their own third (24%), whilst having the biggest percentage of action zone being used in the final third of the pitch (32%)!

The striker (usually Ari) is well fed and involved in controlling possession in the final third. Ari is great at holding onto the ball and bringing players around him into the game.

The Bulls complete a healthy number of passes within 20 yards of the Goal (not including crosses), on average this around 10.5 passes completed per game. Considering a lot of the Russian team’s set-up in a low-block system — Krasnodar are well capable of breaking teams down with fast, slick attacking moves. They can easily create pockets of space in the backline to take a shot at goal or make an opportunity for a teammate.

So how do they do it?

To begin with, both full-backs are very wide, which spreads the opposition backline and forcing one of two men to occupy the space they are covering. Neither of the players highlighted touch the ball in this move, but receiving possession could potentially see an opponent press the ball carrier — creating space behind them. All three attacking players are up on the last line of defence, as well as Yuri Gazinskiy, who applies more pressure.

Krasnodar always have players operating between the lines, opening up passing lanes and giving the ball carrier a chance to progress the ball forward.

With such pressure against the opposition (Lokomotiv Moscow), the ball eventually finds Gazinskiy and then Wanderson, who plays right of the offensive three, drops out of the defender’s field of vision, makes sure he is still onside and exploits the space to draw Krasnodar level.

In the Europa League this season, Krasnodar finished 2nd in Group J; tied on points with the “specialists” Sevilla and one of the favourites in the competition. The Russians recorded a brilliant victory on the second Matchday, beating Sevilla 2–1 at home and in great style. Not only where both teams level on possession, but Krasnodar had more shots at goal, completed a great number of passes in the attacking third and were level against Los Hispalenses.

Their equaliser in this game was beautiful, Krasnodar showed positional superiority and created some fantastic passing triangles against Sevilla who had a lot of bodies in the centre of the pitch. The third-man is incredibly important in this move, drawing opposition players away from the ball and creating small pockets of space for Krasnodar to exploit.

Passing triangles are very important in terms of ball retention, using these can eliminate opposition players out of the game whilst taking the ball forward. Here we see Krasnodar take out a number of Sevilla players, using these triangles and resulting in a goal.

In total, this attacking move had 11 passes, slicing through the Sevilla defence.

A big part of Krasnodar’s transitions in possession is vertical passing. Vertical passing is arguably the most effective way of progressing the ball forward (one of football’s most important principles). Not only does a pass like this break lines but it can also bait opposition players into moving out of position — whether it’s pressing the ball and allowing access behind that player or leaving the player chasing the ball behind them.

This type of passing has been popularized by virtually any Bielsa side ever, Sergio Busquets is a player in particular who uses this passing to break lines; and Krasnodar have used vertical passing in a lot of attacking moves, which they have done to great success.

Here is a good example I found when Krasnodar faced Anzhi — former home to Samuel Eto’o, amazingly. The front three are baited into pressing both Martynovich and Fjoluson in the Krasnodar defence. Where Anzhi went horribly wrong is the fact their defensive line is far too deep, leaving acres for the visitors to occupy. Despite them covering passing lanes, the movement from Krasnodar players off the ball is very intriguing.

Kabore drags the midfielder out of position and allows the right-back Sergey Petrov to find Mauricio Pereyra with options further forward. He makes a brilliant through ball, which gives Krasnodar access behind the line and in for their fourth goal in this game.

The Black and Greens are brilliant at progressing the ball forward, not only with their runs behind but occupying between the opposition defensive lines. In terms of Expected Goals, Krasnodar are overperforming by 7.41 expected goals! This could be a good or a bad thing, are they very clinical when it comes to shooting positions or are they extremely lucky? I think with the quality of goals I’ve watched and some of the chances they’ve created, I’d prefer to say that they finish chances off better than any other team in the Russian Premier League.

There’s still a lot I need to discover with Krasnodar, I haven’t really assessed how good they are in defence; in terms of pressing numbers, they’re in a very, very good position. Not only have they recorded their best press resistance stats in a couple of years, but they’ve recorded the best numbers in the league out of any team in the past three seasons.

In terms of Expected Goals against, Krasnodar are performing well and are not conceding many big chances consistently in games. They are currently on 17.31 xGA having conceded 13 in the league in total, their Expected Goals Against ranks them around mid-table in the league so there could be a flaw within how Musayev sets up his defence.

Other than that, I really enjoy watching Krasnodar when on the ball. In a division which has lacked quality for a number of years, Murad Masayev is bringing in fresh ideas and, hopefully, a new way into how Russian Football is portrayed across the rest of Europe. The Bulls are clearly preparing to become the biggest force Russia has to offer, heavily investing in their Youth academy and owning a network of youth football schools across the Krasnodar Krai and Adygea regions.

For a division with so many multi-billionaire owners, it’s quite startling how far behind Russian Football is in comparison to countries more south, but Krasnodar looks and plays like a team that can challenge in Europe consistently.

Murad Musayev could be a manager well talked about in a few years’ time, perhaps similar to how Paulo Fonseca has helped Shakhtar Donetsk move onto a much bigger platform with his tactics and performances in European competition. Krasnodar are up against Bayer Leverkusen in the last 32 of the Europa League, a game which could be much more intriguing than what you first thought.

Stats via Understat.com and WhoScored.com