Midfielder of the Moscow football club CSKA Matvey Kislyak received the “First Five” award, given to the best young player of the Russian Premier League (RPL) last year. The presentation took place at the Russian State Children’s Library.
As a result of a survey of specialists, Kislyak scored 474 points. Second place was taken by his teammate, midfielder Kirill Glebov (338 points), while third place was taken by Spartak Moscow midfielder Igor Dmitriev (158). The best young footballer of 2025 was Krasnodar striker Arina Shuba.
Club managers and coaches took part in the vote RPLmentors of youth and national teams, representatives of the Russian Football Federation, RPLChildren’s football league, football development organizations and journalists.
Best Young Player Award RPL “First Five” was founded in 2002. The best young player of last year RPL Lokomotiv midfielder Alexey Batrakov was honored. Previous winners of the award were Alexander Kerzhakov, Vladimir Bystrov, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, Igor Akinfeev, Roman Shishkin, Kirill Kombarov, Alan Dzagoev, Georgy Shchennikov, Pavel Yakovlev, Alexander Kokorin, Konstantin Bazelyuk, Elmir Nabiullin, Alexey Miranchuk, Alexander Golovin, Fedor Chalov, Ilzat Akhmetov, Matvey Safonov, Magomed-Shapi Suleymanov, Igor Diveev, Arsen Zakharyan, Sergey Pinyaev and Konstantin Tyukavin.
This season RPL The 20-year-old Kislyak played 27 matches for the club in various tournaments, scoring five goals and providing five assists. In 2025, together with CSKA The footballer won the Russian Cup and the Super Cup. The midfielder also played seven matches for the Russian national team, scoring one goal.
