For several months now, Russian football has been in total isolation. At first, it seemed that the decisions of the sports authorities would only affect the national team, which was deprived of the right to participate in all international tournaments, including the World Cup. However, the sanctions eventually extended to club competitions under the auspices of FIFA and UEFA.

The temporary ban on participation in European competitions instantly called into question Russia’s long-term prospects in European football. Missing a whole season threatened our association with a serious drop in the rankings – it could now take years to restore its former positions …

However, all these restrictions, oddly enough, did not prevent Zenit from climbing 10 positions higher in the list of the best clubs in the world. How so?

Rating problems

Zenit, like other Russian clubs, lost the right to participate in European competitions last spring. However, the Petersburgers flew out of the tournament before the ban came into force: at the stage of the 1/16 finals of the Europa League, the blue-white-blue lost to Betis (2:3; 0:0). Later it became known that the St. Petersburg club was excluded from the next European trophy draw, although the victory in the RPL guaranteed him a ticket to the Champions League group stage.

Sanctions from the sports authorities will hurt Russia’s position in the UEFA rankings, and hence the country’s prospects in European competition. At the end of the 2021/22 season, our club association took 10th place in the list, having stayed in the top ten due to the success of five years ago. In the next European campaign, UEFA will credit Russia with a minimum of 4.3 points, so that at the end of the 2022/23 season, the country will drop to 19th place and will be left without direct tickets to the Champions League (the Premier League champion will go to the first round of qualification) and League of Europe.

Photo: © Alexander Kulebyakin / Global Look Press / Global Look Press

The position of Russia in the ranking of clubs will also worsen. To date, the best position in this UEFA list is occupied by Zenit: St. Petersburg are holding on to the 37th line, ahead of Milan, among other things, due to success in the 2017/18 season. Below are Lokomotiv (48th), CSKA (53rd), Spartak (57th) and Krasnodar (60th), outside the top hundred are Rubin, Sochi, Rostov, Dynamo, Arsenal and Ufa. Next summer, all these teams will fall even lower in the rankings.

Zenit and Dynamo are growing in isolation

All this, however, does not prevent some of our teams from advancing in the world ranking, which is maintained by FiveThirtyEight. Guided by special algorithms, the famous portal’s supercomputer calculates the objective level of the club, the so-called football strength index, after each game day. This index is made up of the team’s performance in attack and defense, the quality of which is assessed using three advanced metrics, essentially reminiscent of the xG parameter: adjusted goals, shot-based expected goals, and non-shot expected goals.

The results of the FiveThirtyEight analysis are generally consistent with the observations of “live” experts. So, the five strongest teams on the planet, according to the supercomputer, are as follows: Manchester City, Bayern, Liverpool, PSG, Real Madrid. The top 5 of UEFA, for example, differs quite a bit: in the European rankings, PSG’s place is occupied by Chelsea.

According to information from July 22, Zenit occupies the highest place in the FiveThirtyEight list among Russian clubs. The St. Petersburg club has risen in the ranking by as much as ten positions, taking the 40th line. Now the “blue-white-blue” bypass, among others, Juventus (43rd place), Lazio (44th) and Brugge (46th) – coincidentally, Zenit lost to all these teams during the last two league campaigns.

Photo: © Dmitry Chelyapin / Match TV

The shares of Dynamo also increased. Muscovites moved up 9 positions (from 183rd to 174th), overtaking Hamburg and PAOK. The rest of the metropolitan clubs, on the contrary, fell in the FiveThirtyEight rating. CSKA and Spartak have lost 16 positions and now occupy 152nd and 164th places, respectively, while Lokomotiv is at 197th. The top three weakest RPL teams are expected to include newcomers to the league: Fakel (410th), Torpedo (429th) and Orenburg (437th).

The FiveThirtyEight list can do little to help Russia in the international arena, however, objective analytical data show that the RPL champion still retains its former competitiveness and has had a good transfer campaign. It will be much more interesting, however, to look at this list at the end of the season to understand whether the Russians took advantage of isolation in order to become stronger.