Football Season Guide

Akron Tolyatti

In


Aleksa Djurasovic (mid), Spartak Subotica), Paulo Vitor (def), Estoril), Stefan Loncar (mid)l Debrecen), Vyacheslav Bardybakhin (def), Yenisey), Soltmurad Bakaev (mid), Rubin Kazan), Aleksandr Vasyutin (gk), Zenit), Rodrigo Escoval (def), Vizela), Maksim Kuzmin (mid), Baltika), Vladimir Moskvichev (mid), Torpedo Moscow - loan)

Out


Ruslan Bart (sp)(mid), Sochi), Andrés Ponce (r)(att), Atletico Bucaramanga), Anton Kilin (r)(mid), Urartu), Egor Danilkin (k)(def), Torpedo Moscow), Nikita Glushkov (sp)(mid), Baltika), Sergey Makarov (r)(mid), Alania Vladikavkaz), Ivan Chudin (r)(mid), Ural), David Khubaev (sp)(mid), KamAZ), Evgeniy Pesegov (sp)(mid), Leningradets), Nemanja Andjelkovic (r)(def), Timur Akmurzin (gk), Dzhamaldin Khodzhaniyazov (sp)(def)

Akron Togliatti are the smallest club in the division this season and one of the smallest win general in the Russian Premier League for quite a while. Having been created just six years ago, the club from the outskirts of Samara have made rapid progress over the past couple of years, first by going on a fairytale run in the Russian Cup in 2022/23, beating Lokomotiv, Dynamo and Spartak Moscow before losing to Krasnodar on penalties. Last season, they were impressive in the league from the early stages and were always up there in the top places. They eventually finished third but showed nerves of steel and composure to see off Ural in the relegation playoff and thus celebrate historic promotion. Zaur Tedeev took over as a coach mid-season last year and he is a pretty functional and orthodox coach, who lines up with banks of four and an attacking midfielder behind a striker. He will look to make Akron a main to play against this season but it is clear that this team starts as major underdogs and will need to hit the ground running to stand much of a chance of survival. Even more so, they are also basically creating a new team during the summer after a host of experienced and important players from last season moved on. Akron focused on the foreign market for most of their reinforcements and while there are already some decent additions who look capable of competing in the Russian Premier League, the squad still requires quite a lot of work more to be competitive.

Target


Trying to stay up against the odds.