Eighteen months have passed since the 2018 World Cup in Russia, which is considered as one of the best in history and has produced many surprises.
The host national team, who was expected to have a bad and anemic tournament, opened it with a thrashing 5:0 against Saudi Arabia, overcame Spain on penalties in the round-of-16 and eventually was eliminated in the quarter-finals after a thrilling game against future finalist Croatia.
While for most of the world the tournament is now a distant memory, its impact on Russia – both direct and indirect – wouldn’t end soon. The new stadiums, the wiser policies of signing foreign players and developing local ones can make a real difference in Russian football. The question is, how realistic are these changes?
The most notable change is, of course, the infrastructure. Six stadiums were built especially for the tournament, causing concerns about the financial difficulties because of their maintenance after the tournament's end. It sounds bizarre to build a 40,000-seat stadium in a town which doesn’t even have a club from the top league. Additionally, building a stadium on its own, without other attractions for the broad public, might not be enough to attract families and moderate fans.
For now, it seems that this is not the situation in Russia and that the worries were premature. Last season was record-breaking in terms of fans who visited the venues – an average of more than 16,000 of them came to each match, comparing to 13,000 the year before, which continues the rise in fan amounts in recent years. Even second-tier clubs who received new stadiums bring a considerable number of fans. In Volgograd, for example, the local club Rotor brought 19,000 fans on average – more than Lokomotiv Moscow in the top division.
Also, compared to other countries who had previously hosted the World Cup, the situation in Russia seems better. In Brazil, the previous host, some stadiums became parking lots or wedding venues. In South Africa, the first African country to host the tournament, the large once-new stadiums are now abandoned and neglected because no one can afford their cost. At least for now, it seems that the Russian authorities avoid making similar mistakes.
However, those numbers don’t tell the whole story. They refer to home matches, while in away matches no more than 3,000 away fans arrive, which is precisely the league’s average for years before the World Cup. It means that fans aren't necessarily interested not in football itself, but more in visiting the new stadiums. Early in 2018-19, around 30,000 fans came to support Nizhny Novgorod, a number that decreased throughout the season. For this situation, it can be useful to add attractions before and after the matches, so that fans will view gamedays as a family holiday. This was implemented in the Kazan Arena, for example. The venue of local Rubin offers its visitors among other things a high-quality restaurant with a view to the pitch, a child gaming zone, a pool, and a Harley Davidson showroom – attractions for every family member for before and after the match.
Another critical issue is the local players’ quality and development. On the one hand, we see more Russian players who lead their teams, such as Fyodor Chalov and Anton Miranchuk from CSKA Moscow and Lokomotiv respectively. On the other hand, following a surprisingly successful tournament for Russia, one could have expected to see more local players join foreign teams. Still, Aleksandr Golovin from struggling Monaco is the only one to do so by far. Many people claim that the reason for this issue is that are plenty of foreign players in the league, but the situation is more complicated and starts at youth levels.
The lack of proper youth systems and facilities is the main reason why many young players are being wasted for years in lower-division teams or reserve squads of top-flight’s teams. According to Alex Velikih, a Ukrainian private scout in Eastern Europe, the scouting system in most of the clubs is not developed enough, especially comparing to western European countries. There is no requirement for the clubs to have professional academies for young ages, so there is no need to employ large numbers of scouts for a small number of players. When the clubs want to strengthen their squads, they use the help of private scouting agencies, which are not related to any of them. However, an agency may not know how a current club looks from inside, so there is a risk to sign an unsuitable player. In that way, even the few youngsters who are talented enough to play in first teams may not be discovered.
Possible solutions may be launching more professional scouting courses and loan partnerships between high and low division clubs. In this case, top teams’ youngsters will gain experience amongst adult players in lower leagues, instead of sitting on the bench or getting used to U21 matches, and lower-division teams will get talented players for free.
There are some positive aspects, too. As a significant part of the league’s “rebranding”, it runs a very active official Instagram page. It includes information, match highlights, goals and saves compilations and much more. Together with the new logo, it seems that the league is successfully changing its image. On the pitch, VAR is being used and has already proven itself in a few controversial incidents.
Moreover, foreign players who come to Russia are chosen more wisely than before. No more expensive players who contribute nothing. Most of the teams sign good players for reasonable fees. Borussia Dortmund’s Maximillian Phillip, former Sevilla and Inter player Joao Mario and ex-PSG and Sevilla Grzegorz Krychowiak are some of the recent examples of the new policy. Their additions might help local players improve by learning from their more experienced teammates.
With four different champions in the past four years, including a reborn Lokomotiv, an unstable Spartak Moscow, and recently arisen Krasnodar and Rostov, it is no longer a two-head race between rich Zenit and good-old CSKA.
Russia has the potential to maintain its World Cup’s success in the following years. The stadiums are being widely visited and primarily used, local players are finally becoming integral parts of their teams alongside with wisely chosen foreign ones, in contrast to recent years’ narrative. “Following the World Cup, Russia’s global perception has been changed,” said in October Alexsandr Cheferin, UEFA president, “Europe without Russia is not Europe”. It seems that with a few more right steps of making the football more accessible to all parts of the population, the 2018 World Cup will mark the beginning of a new successful era in Russian football.