2008 Russian Premier League

The 2008 Russian Premier League was the 17th edition of the Russian Football Championship, and the seventh under the current Russian Premier League name. The season started on Friday, 14 March 2008 with a match between Terek and Krylia Sovetov in Grozny. Krylia Sovetov won 3–0. The first goal of the season was scored by Krylia Sovetov's forward Yevgeny Savin.

Russian Premier League

Season	2008
Champions	Rubin Kazan 1st title
Relegated	Shinnik Yaroslavl Luch-Energiya Vladivostok
Champions League	Rubin Kazan CSKA Moscow Dynamo Moscow
Europa League	Amkar Perm Zenit St.Petersburg Krylia Sovetov
Matches played	240
Goals scored	578 (2.41 per match)
Top goalscorer	Vágner Love (20)
← 2007 2009 →

Due to Russia's participation in UEFA Euro 2008, the season was interrupted from 16 May until 5 July.

The champions were determined on the 27th matchday, 2 November 2008. Rubin claimed their first championship title in Russian Premier League, defeating Saturn 2–1 away, with Savo Milošević scoring in the 89th minute to claim the title for his club. Rubin became the third (and second consecutive) non-Moscow club to become Russian champions.

The last round of matches was played on 22 November 2008.

Teams

As in the previous season, 16 teams played in the 2008 season. After the 2007 season, Kuban Krasnodar and Rostov were relegated to the 2008 Russian First Division. They were replaced by Shinnik Yaroslavl and Terek Grozny, the winners and runners up of the 2007 Russian First Division.

Venues

Amkar	CSKA	Dynamo	Khimki
Zvezda Stadium	Luzhniki Stadium	Central Stadium	Arena Khimki
Capacity: 20,000	Capacity: 76,000	Capacity: 36,540	Capacity: 18,000
Krylia	CSKA Dynamo Khimki Lokomotiv Moscow Saturn Spartak Amkar Krylia Rubin Shinnik Spartak Terek Zenit Locations of teams in 2008 Russian Premier League Moscow Luch Tom Locations of teams in 2008 Russian Premier League, Tomsk & Vladivostok		Lokomotiv
Metallurg Stadium			RZD Arena
Capacity: 33,220			Capacity: 28,800
Luch-Energia			Moscow
Dynamo Stadium			Eduard Streltsov Stadium
Capacity: 10,200			Capacity: 13,422
Rubin			Saturn
Central Stadium			Saturn Stadium
Capacity: 30,133			Capacity: 16,726
Shinnik			Spartak Moscow
Shinnik Stadium			Luzhniki Stadium
Capacity: 19,000			Capacity: 76,000
Spartak Nalchik	Terek	Tom	Zenit Saint Petersburg
Spartak Stadium	Sultan Bilimkhanov Stadium	Trud Stadium	Petrovsky Stadium
Capacity: 14,400	Capacity: 10,400	Capacity: 14,950	Capacity: 21,725

Personnel and kits

Team	Location	Head coach	Captain	Kit manufacturer	Shirt sponsor
Amkar Perm	Perm	Miodrag Božović	Aleksei Popov	Adidas
CSKA	Moscow	Valery Gazzaev	Igor Akinfeev	Reebok	VTB
Dynamo	Moscow	Andrey Kobelev	Dmitri Khokhlov	Umbro	Metalloinvest
Khimki	Khimki	Sergei Yuran	Roman Berezovsky	Nike	Mezhregionalnaya Developerskaya Kompania
Krylia	Samara	Leonid Slutsky	Matthew Booth	Umbro	RosTekhnologii
Lokomotiv	Moscow	Rashid Rakhimov	Diniyar Bilyaletdinov	Adidas	Russian Railways
Luch-Energia	Vladivostok	Semen Altman	Dmitry Smirnov	Nike	DalEnergo
Moscow	Moscow	Oleg Blokhin	Dmitri Godunok	Umbro	Norilsk Nickel
Rubin	Kazan	Kurban Berdyev	Sergei Semak	Nike	ТАИФ
Saturn	Ramenskoye	Jürgen Röber	Aleksei Igonin	Adidas
Shinnik	Yaroslavl	Sergei Pavlov	Denis Boyarintsev	Adidas
Spartak	Moscow	Michael Laudrup	Mozart	Nike	Lukoil
Spartak	Nalchik	Yuri Krasnozhan	Miodrag Džudović	Nike
Terek	Grozny	Vyacheslav Hroznyi	Timur Dzhabrailov	Umbro	RAO UES
Tom	Tomsk	Valery Nepomnyashchy	Valeri Klimov	Adidas
Zenit	Saint Petersburg	Dick Advocaat	Anatoliy Tymoshchuk	Puma	Gazprom

Managerial changes

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Position in table	Replaced by	Date of appointment	Position in table
Moscow	Leonid Slutsky	Fired	End of 2007 Season[1]	Preseason	Oleg Blokhin	14 December 2007[2]	Preseason
Amkar	Rashid Rakhimov	Joined Lokomotiv	6 December 2007		Miodrag Božović	9 January 2008[3]
Krylia	Aleksandr Tarkhanov				Leonid Slutsky	21 December 2007[4]
Lokomotiv	Anatoliy Byshovets				Rashid Rakhimov	6 December 2007[5]
Luch-Energiya	Sergei Pavlov				Zoran Vulić	19 December 2007[6]
Khimki	Slavoljub Muslin	Fired	14 April 2008[7]	14th	Igor Yushchenko (Caretaker)	14 April 2008[7]	14th
Khimki	Igor Yushchenko (Caretaker)	End of role	29 May 2008	16th	Sergei Yuran	29 May 2008[8]	16th
Tom	Valery Petrakov	Mutual termination	1 June 2008[9]	12th	Miroslav Romaschenko	1 June 2008[9]	12th
Saturn	Gadzhi Gadzhiyev		8 August 2008	12th	Jürgen Röber	21 August 2008[10]	12th
Spartak	Stanislav Cherchesov	Fired	14 August 2008[11]	4th	Igor Lediakhov (Caretaker)	14 August 2008	4th
Tom	Miroslav Romaschenko	Fired	4 September 2008[12]	12th	Vasili Baskakov (Caretaker)	4 September 2008	12th
Tom	Vasili Baskakov (Caretaker)	End of role	11 September 2008	12th	Valery Nepomnyashchy	11 September 2008[13]	12th
Spartak	Igor Lediakhov (Caretaker)	End of role	12 September 2008	3rd	Michael Laudrup	12 September 2008[14]	3rd
Luch-Energiya	Zoran Vulić	10 October 2008		14th	Semen Altman	10 October 2008[15]	14th

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Rubin Kazan (C)	30	18	6	6	44	26	+18	60	Qualification to Champions League group stage
2	CSKA Moscow	30	16	8	6	53	24	+29	56
3	Dynamo Moscow	30	15	9	6	41	29	+12	54	Qualification to Champions League third qualifying round
4	Amkar Perm	30	14	9	7	31	22	+9	51	Qualification to Europa League play-off round
5	Zenit St. Petersburg	30	12	12	6	59	37	+22	48[a]
6	Krylia Sovetov Samara	30	12	12	6	46	28	+18	48[a]	Qualification to Europa League third qualifying round[b]
7	Lokomotiv Moscow	30	13	8	9	37	32	+5	47
8	Spartak Moscow	30	11	11	8	43	39	+4	44
9	FC Moscow	30	9	11	10	34	36	−2	38
10	Terek Grozny	30	9	8	13	28	42	−14	35
11	Saturn	30	7	12	11	26	30	−4	33
12	Spartak Nalchik	30	8	8	14	30	39	−9	32
13	Tom Tomsk	30	7	8	15	23	39	−16	29
14	Khimki	30	6	9	15	34	54	−20	27
15	Shinnik Yaroslavl (R)	30	5	7	18	25	48	−23	22	Relegation to First Division
16	Luch-Energiya Vladivostok (R)	30	3	12	15	24	53	−29	21

Source: RFPL (in Russian)
Rules for classification: 1st points; 2nd matches won; 3rd head-to-head (points, matches won, goal difference, goals scored, away goals scored); 4th goal difference; 5th goals scored; 6th away goals scored; 7th position in previous season or decision game
(C) Champions; (R) Relegated
Notes:

1. Zenit St. Petersburg ahead of Krylia Sovetov on head-to-head points; Zenit St. Petersburg–Krylia Sovetov 1–1, Krylia Sovetov–Zenit St. Petersburg 0–3.
2. Since both finalists of the 2008–09 Russian Cup qualified for the 2009–10 UEFA Champions League, Krylia Sovetov earned a spot in the third qualifying round of the 2009–10 UEFA Europa League.

Results

Home \ Away	AMK	CSK	DYN	KHI	KRY	LOK	LUE	MOS	RUB	SAT	SHI	SPA	SPN	TER	TOM	ZEN
Amkar Perm		3–3	1–2	3–1	1–0	0–0	2–0	2–0	1–2	1–0	2–0	1–1	0–0	0–0	0–0	1–1
CSKA Moscow	4–1		0–2	4–3	0–0	0–0	4–1	0–2	4–0	1–0	1–1	0–1	0–1	2–0	2–1	0–0
Dynamo Moscow	1–0	1–3		2–0	2–2	4–2	2–0	1–1	0–2	2–1	2–0	4–3	1–0	2–1	2–0	1–0
Khimki	0–3	1–2	1–1		1–0	2–2	3–1	0–2	0–4	2–1	0–0	3–3	2–0	0–1	1–1	1–4
Krylia Sovetov Samara	2–0	0–2	3–3	3–0		2–0	2–1	1–1	2–2	4–0	4–0	1–1	2–0	4–3	3–0	0–3
Lokomotiv Moscow	0–1	0–2	0–1	0–2	2–0		2–2	3–2	0–1	0–0	3–0	2–2	0–0	2–0	2–0	0–3
Luch-Energiya Vladivostok	0–1	1–3	1–0	1–1	0–0	2–3		1–1	1–1	0–0	1–0	2–2	0–2	1–1	0–0	0–0
FC Moscow	0–1	1–4	1–1	2–2	1–1	0–3	3–0		1–2	0–0	2–1	2–1	1–3	0–0	2–1	0–2
Rubin Kazan	1–0	0–0	1–0	2–0	3–0	1–2	1–0	0–1		0–0	1–1	0–3	3–0	1–3	2–1	4–1
Saturn	0–0	0–4	2–0	2–2	0–0	1–2	2–1	0–0	1–2		4–0	0–0	1–1	3–1	2–0	1–1
Shinnik Yaroslavl	1–2	1–0	2–0	3–2	0–0	1–2	1–2	0–1	0–2	0–1		1–2	2–1	1–1	0–1	2–2
Spartak Moscow	1–1	1–5	1–1	1–1	0–1	0–1	3–0	1–1	0–1	1–0	4–2		2–1	3–1	1–0	1–3
Spartak Nalchik	0–1	0–0	0–2	1–2	1–1	0–1	2–2	0–3	2–0	2–1	2–1	1–2		2–0	1–1	2–2
Terek Grozny	0–1	1–0	0–0	1–0	0–3	2–1	2–1	1–1	0–0	1–0	0–0	3–1	2–1		1–3	1–4
Tom Tomsk	0–1	0–0	0–0	3–1	0–4	0–1	1–1	2–1	1–2	0–1	2–1	0–1	1–0	2–0		1–1
Zenit St. Petersburg	2–0	1–3	1–1	1–0	1–1	1–1	8–1	2–1	1–3	2–2	1–3	0–0	3–4	3–1	5–1

Source: RFPL (in Russian)
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Season statistics

Top goalscorers

As of matches played on 22 November 2008.

Rank	Player	Club	Goal
1	Vágner Love	CSKA	20
2	Marko Topić	Saturn	10
	Peter Odemwingie	Lokomotiv
	Danny	Dynamo / Zenit
	Eldar Nizamutdinov	Khimki
6	Diniyar Bilyaletdinov	Lokomotiv	9
7	Alan Dzagoev	CSKA	8
	Fatih Tekke	Zenit
	Anton Bobyor	Krylia
	Héctor Bracamonte	Moscow
	Martin Kushev	Amkar

Awards

On 16 December 2008 Russian Football Union named its list of 33 top players:^[16]

Goalkeepers Igor Akinfeev (CSKA) Sergei Ryzhikov (Rubin) Vyacheslav Malafeev (Zenit)

Right backs Aleksandr Anyukov (Zenit) Cristian Ansaldi (Rubin) Vasili Berezutskiy (CSKA)

Right-centre backs Denis Kolodin (Dynamo) Rodolfo (Lokomotiv) Dmitri Belorukov (Amkar)

Left-centre backs Sergei Ignashevich (CSKA) Leandro Fernández (Dynamo) Aleksei Popov (Amkar/Rubin)

Left backs Radek Šírl (Zenit) Aleksei Berezutskiy (CSKA) Renat Yanbaev (Lokomotiv)

Defensive midfielders Anatoliy Tymoschuk (Zenit) Sergei Semak (Rubin) Dmitri Khokhlov (Dynamo)

Right wingers Miloš Krasić (CSKA) Igor Denisov (Zenit) Kirill Kombarov (Dynamo)

Central midfielders Danny (Dynamo/Zenit) Igor Semshov (Dynamo) Alan Dzagoev (CSKA)

Left wingers Yuri Zhirkov (CSKA) Konstantin Zyryanov (Zenit) Diniyar Bilyaletdinov (Lokomotiv)

Right forwards Vágner Love (CSKA) Pavel Pogrebnyak (Zenit) Roman Pavlyuchenko (Spartak M.)

Left forwards Andrei Arshavin (Zenit) Marko Topić (Saturn) Gökdeniz Karadeniz (Rubin)

Medal squads

1. FC Rubin Kazan

Goalkeepers: Sergei Ryzhikov (26), Sergei Kozko (6). Defenders: Cristian Ansaldi (27 / 1), Roman Sharonov (26 / 1), Dato Kvirkvelia (24 / 3), Stjepan Tomas (19), Lasha Salukvadze (15), Aleksandr Orekhov (10), Aleksei Popov (7), Jefthon (2), Andrei Fyodorov (1), Gabriel Atz (1). Midfielders: Gökdeniz Karadeniz (27 / 6), Sergei Semak (27 / 5), MacBeth Sibaya (25), Serhii Rebrov (24 / 5), Aleksandr Ryazantsev (22 / 1), Christian Noboa (21 / 6), Andrei Kobenko (17 / 2), Yevgeni Balyaikin (10), Aleksei Rebko (3), Vagiz Galiullin (1), Pyotr Gitselov (1). Forwards: Hasan Kabze (23 / 2), Aleksandr Bukharov (20 / 6), Roman Adamov (13 / 1), Savo Milošević (16 / 3). (league appearances and goals listed in brackets) Manager: Kurban Berdyev. Transferred out during the season: Gabriel Atz (on loan to FC Khimki), Pyotr Gitselov (on loan to FC Rostov), Aleksei Rebko (to FC Moscow).

2. PFC CSKA Moscow

Goalkeepers: Igor Akinfeev (30). Defenders: Sergei Ignashevich (28 / 4), Vasili Berezutski (28), Aleksei Berezutski (24 / 2), Deividas Šemberas (24), Chidi Odiah (23), Anton Grigoryev (16). Midfielders: Miloš Krasić (28 / 6), Yuri Zhirkov (28 / 3), Evgeni Aldonin (25 / 3), Elvir Rahimić (23), Alan Dzagoev (20 / 8), Caner Erkin (18 / 1), Pavel Mamayev (17 / 2), Dudu (10 / 1), Luboš Kalouda (1). Forwards: Vágner Love (26 / 20), Ricardo Jesus (10), Jô (8 / 3), Dmitri Ryzhov (8), Ramón (7), Daniel Carvalho (4), Dawid Janczyk (4). Manager: Valery Gazzaev. Transferred out during the season: Dudu (to Olympiacos), Jô (to Manchester City), Daniel Carvalho (on loan to Internacional).

3. FC Dynamo Moscow

Goalkeepers: Vladimir Gabulov (12), Žydrūnas Karčemarskas (9), Anton Shunin (9). Defenders: Leandro Fernández (28 / 4), Denis Kolodin (22 / 1), Jovan Tanasijević (20 / 1), Marcin Kowalczyk (20), Aleksandr Dimidko (12 / 2), Luke Wilkshire (11 / 2), Vladimir Granat (11), Arūnas Klimavičius (9 / 1), Nikita Chicherin (3), Aleksandr Tochilin (3). Midfielders: Dmitri Kombarov (30 / 1), Igor Semshov (29 / 6), Dmitri Khokhlov (27 / 2), Kirill Kombarov (26 / 1), Danny (18 / 5), Andrei Karpovich (12), Aleksandr Denisov (1). Forwards: Aleksandr Kerzhakov (27 / 7), Tsvetan Genkov (23 / 4), Aleksandr Kokorin (7 / 2), Fyodor Smolov (7 / 1). Manager: Andrey Kobelev. Transferred out during the season: Danny (to FC Zenit St. Petersburg), Aleksandr Denisov (on loan to FC Salyut-Energia Belgorod).