Football Season Guide

This seems to be the season to have fate in the assistant coaches and, after Semak left to take charge of Zenit at the end of the previous campaign, Ufa’s assistant coach for the last eight years Sergey Tomarov was offered the job and he accepted. The 36-year-old Tomarov has never been head coach before, but his long involvement with the club means that he knows everyone very well. As usual, Ufa are very careful with their finances and only one new signing was made so far, with the team rarely adding more than two-three newcomers per transfer window anyway. The pleasing news is that apart from Stotskiy everyone else that is important stayed put and once again the core of the squad seems to be intact. Fatai will be hoping for much better luck in front of goal, with the main concern with the Nigerian striker being his health after three different injuries ruined his previous campaign. Tomarov seems set to change very little in terms of tactical approach and 3-4-2-1 should be the shape when Ufa are on the front foot, but every time the side have to defend this will all be changing to 5-3-1-1. The two main full-backs Jokic and Zhivoglyadov had a very impressive previous campaign (6 goals and 9 assists between them) and, the way Ufa focuses their counterattacking efforts predominantly down the two flanks, they should be playing key roles once more. Defensively the side looks covered for any eventuality with as many as 8 centre-backs and 5 full-backs currently in the squad. This year will also see Ufa making their first ever appearance in international competition, the team represents Russia in Europa League, and, if the group stage is to be reached, this could have impact on the domestic results between September and December. Tomarov leaves the impression of a very calm and likable manager and one thing certain about Ufa is that they will be extremely hard to break defensively. For three consecutive seasons the side have one of the best records for amount of clean sheets kept and this trend is very likely to continue. That said, scoring goals is not always easy and with no typical poacher in the squad Ufa could struggle at times to create and convert chances.