Anzhi v Newcastle: Russia's Galacticos await Toon as Kerimov's millions build a modern super club
Awash with oil money, Russian football is attracting some of the best players in the game and nowhere is that more evident than Makhachkala where the 146th richest man in the world is building a team of Galacticos
In 2001-02, Anzhi Makhachkala played Rangers in a Uefa Cup first round game in Warsaw, the tie switched to a single- tie at a neutral venue because of the conflict in Dagestan. Since they started playing home games - or at least games in Russia given they still play in Moscow rather than Makhachkala - Anzhi have won seven out of seven European ties. That's the size of the task facing Newcastle United on Thursday evening.
They're unbeaten at home in the Russian league as well, having won eight and draw two of their ten games to lie second, two points behind CSKA Moscow. They don't restart their domestic season until March 10 and so, as with all eastern sides, there's a slight question about how match-fit they'll be, although they looked sharp enough in beating Hannover 4-2 over two legs in the last 32.
Newcastle have won only one of 14 away games in the Premier League but given their five Europa League away games have brought three draws, a defeat (to Bordeaux) and a win (at Metalist in the last round), there must be a temptation, if not to back Newcastle at 5.8 then at least to lay Anzhi.
While Metalist did not look fully fit, Newcastle were excellent in that game and it's not as though Anzhi, who have played in three different stadiums in this European campaign, will have a passionate support behind them. In fact were any fans to travel to Moscow, where Anzhi base themselves away from domestic matchdays, from Makhachkala, they'd be making a trip of a touch under 1,000 miles, more than half as far as the journey from Newcastle.
Of all the artificial super-clubs springing up thanks to sugar-daddy investment, none feels quite so artificial as Anzhi. It may be that none ends up being quite so super. They were founded in 1991 by Alexander Markarov, who had played at centre-forward for Dinamo Makhachkala a team that had played in the Soviet second flight between 1971 and 1990, and the local entrepreneur Magomed-Sultan Magomedov, the owner of Dagneftprodukt, the largest fuel-processing company in the region. They took the name Anzhi, meaning "Pearl" in the local Kumyk language.
With Markarov coming out of retirement, they were rapidly promoted through the regional leagues into the Russian top flight. Their great leap forward, though, came in January 2011 when they were taken over by Suleyman Kerimov, the 146th richest man in the world according to the most recent Forbes list, with a fortune of $6.5billion. His investment at the club now stands at somewhere around £170million.
That has included - notoriously - Roberto Carlos and Samuel Eto'o, but also more restrained signings such as the giant Ivorian forward Lacina Traore and the Brazilian midfielder Jucilei. Over the winter, they've added the in-demand Brazilian forward Willian from Shakhtar Donetsk, the Russia international defender Andrei Eschenko from Lokomotiv Moskva and the Bosnia centre-back Emir Spahiæ, loaned from Sevilla to replace Christopher Samba.
"When I came onto the pitch I saw so many stars," said Spahiæ.
"I don't know the right word to express my feelings - it's just a rush. Roberto Carlos, Samuel Eto'o, Lassana Diarra, Yuri Zhirkov, Mbark Boussoufa - yet I didn't get any air of arrogance from them. I felt part of the team. There has been a lot of news about Anzhi in the last two years. The whole world is interested in what's going on here."
Quite why Kerimov has invested so heavily remains debatable. He is a local and speaks of regional pride, but the suspicion is that he has been advised to build up the club as part of the Vladimir Putin government's policy of reaching out to the regions and trying to 'normalise' the situation in Makhachkala , where the tensions that led to conflict have not entirely subsided.
That has certainly been effective. A decade ago, Makhachkala was a city known in the west only to students of the Caucasian conflicts; now, even if Anzhi don't actually live, train or play European matches there, Europe knows it as a football city. Every round they progress in the Europa League only eases the process.
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Keywords: Anzhi, Newcastle, Russia Galacticos, Kerimov
Source: Betfair
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