Weekend Preview by Icetips

Fisht of Fury – Showdown in Sochi

This Friday we‘ll see Sochi kickstart the 14th round in the Premier League when they host Ufa at Fisht Olympic Stadium. The hosts are among the top teams in the league while Ufa sit at the bottom with absolutely nothing going their way.

We‘re likely to see the ball being contested heavily in the middle here. Both sides have been switching between a three-piece defensive line and a five-piece. Ufa hasn‘t seen much success and they‘ve been heavily rotating in order to shake things up but I still favor them to play 5-3-2 rather than 5-4-1. Catalin Carp and Artem Gobulev will have to command the midfield and utilize the absence of Sochi‘s veteran star player Christian Noboa to keep the ball moving forward through the midfield. Noboa has been instrumental in Sochi doing well with seven goals but the hosts are well capable of dominating through other ways – as the pass completion ratio from defense to midfield is great. The threat of Joaozinho and Zabolotny up front shouldn‘t be taken lightly by the visitors as the latter draws in a ton of fouls, undoubtedly due to Joaozinho‘s ability to complete important passes in attacking play.

When we look at discipline, Ufa is slowly losing the plot here. Having had a torrid run of away games this season they really start to foul immensely in the games where there‘s a tight contest (Ufa has played both Zenit and Lokomotiv with low foul count) but when they fancy their chances, shin guards go flying. Away matches against Arsenal, Akhmat, Tambov, and Rubin have seen Ufa really going all in terms of showing their lack of discipline, and Arsenal, Akhmat and Tambov games saw both sides getting cards in both halves. Sochi is however a more “relaxed” side in relativity to the Russian Premier League.

With an average foul count of 12 per home game, they still don‘t escape bookings and have 16 to their name so far at home, with 12 of them occurring in the second half. It‘s also worth noting that Sochi‘s opponents at home have always picked up more than one card per game and four out of six times we see opponents pick them up in both halves. The referee in charge is Nikolay Voloshin, and while not being necessarily the biggest card giver (again, relative to the Russian Premier League) he‘s still one to take charge of a heated game.

With Ufa having been upping their fouls per game count in last games (and have an 8-out-of-9 run in terms of most fouls) they‘re clearly getting frustrated at the bottom of the table. Should Sochi start on the offensive (like I expect them too), Ufa will do everything they can to avoid the ball from going in before the break (fouling and getting booked). Often has Sochi slowed down their pace after half time (especially in a leading position) so we can expect to have a tight midfield-fought battle between them after the break (and card for each, please, Russia?).

The Chechens Come To Town

There is one team that has the widest appeal to booking bettors in the Russian Premier League, Akhmat Grozny. The Chechens visit Tambov, recovering after a stoppage-time loss against Dynamo Moscow after they held a 1-0 lead and had two players sent off. Those two teams narrowly escaped relegation last season on level points with 15th placed Krylia Sovetov. Akhmat has a better place at this moment but Tambov still hovers around the relegation zone. The prospect of taking all three points for Akhmat should be crucial, since they tend to win their games against the „weaker“ sides in the league and should be on a high after two wins in a row (both after rough encounters, mind you).

Make no mistake about Akhmat‘s potential for roughhousing here. There isn‘t a single away game for Akhmat where they‘ve failed to see two cards at least and also, not a single one where they fail to get booked both halves. They average 95 booking points on total this season and have a 100 BP/game average away from home, and out of 49 cards (43 yellows, 6 red) they‘ve seen 33 away from home (28 yellows, 5 red). Akhmat away games see on average 17 fouls and their data set isn‘t big, spanning from 14 to 23 – so the average is more reliable (same average also at home).

Tambov‘s home ground also tends to be fiery and even though Tambov has once managed to escape a card at home, they‘ve seen over one in every other game at home.  If we also look at fouls Tambov suffers per game, Akhmat‘s average is well higher and that should provoke a fierce reaction from them.

Defender Kaplienko is suspended for Tambov as well but Ciuperca will return after suspension in midfield. Akhmat will only miss midfielder Ismael through suspension but they‘ll have Shvets, Timofeev and Kharin available who can do a two-footer just as capably. þtambov is also struggling in a formation switch between 5-3-2 and 3-5-2 and I‘m expecting them to compliment their loss in Kaplienko with a 3-5-2 formation.  Tambov regularly tries to direct action through the right side at home but Bogosavac and Timofeev are well capable of going rough in on them, where Semenov and Nisic at the heart of defense are always up for a foul. Tambov should have a rough time getting ahead here. Akhmat is a squad that regularly gets caught protecting their goal way rougher than expected and action zones here seem to be wherever they can slide, basically. Dangerous areas of the pitch are a concept that doesn‘t exist to them – aforementioned Bogosavac and Timofeev especially.