Russia Premier League predictions and odds

One of the most important factors for successful football betting is knowing the game itself. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way of attaining this knowledge – you simply have to love football and follow it for years.

Betting Fellow is here to help you with anything related to online sports betting, so we can at least point you in the right direction. We’ll try to do this by providing you with overviews of leagues you might not be as familiar with as you might want to be. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at the Russian Premier League.

Upcoming Matches

Russia Premier League Predictions

20/05/2024

19/05/2024

19/05/2024

19/05/2024

19/05/2024

18/05/2024

18/05/2024

18/05/2024

Russia Premier League Results

Russian Premier League History and General Info

Often abbreviated to RPL, the Russian Premier League is the highest tier of professional football in Russia. It consists of 16 of the best association football clubs in the country. It is currently officially called the Rosgosstrakh Russian Football Championship due to a sponsorship deal with one of Russia’s leading insurance companies.

As of the writing of this review, the UEFA league coefficients rank the Russian Premier League as the 7th-best national league in Europe. This ranking system bases such rankings on performances during the past five years. This means that the RPL is one of the biggest professional football competitions in the world.

The league in its current form was founded only 19 years ago, in 2001. However, the true history of top-flight leagues in Russia starts way back in 1936 while it was still part of the Soviet Union. The highest division of football in the USSR was the Soviet Top League.

The Soviet Top League was established on the initiative of Nikolai Starostin, the founder and head of the Spartak sports society. He is widely considered to be the creator of the Soviet football league system and is a very important figure in the history of USSR’s professional football. The League was originally called Group A. It changed several names over the decades, including the First Group after World War 2 and the Higher League after 1970.

Back in the day, the Soviet Union was a powerhouse in terms of world sports. The Soviet Top League ranked as the second-best league among UEFA members in the 1988-89 season. Following the country’s dissolution in 1991, however, the top-flight league was also splintered into several national leagues – most notably the Ukranian Premier League and the Russian Premier League. Since the international community widely considers Russia to be the USSR’s political successor state, UEFA also considers the Russian Premier League to have succeeded the Soviet Top League.

However, since several major leagues were spawned from the STL, discussing team records and titles can get a bit muddy. Keep this in mind when we discuss such topics later in this article. Between 1991 and 2001, Russia’s highest tier league was the Russian Football Championship. It was rather short-lived but worked a lot like the league we have today. In terms of structure, the RPL follows a mostly standard format. The 16 teams all play each other twice, once home and once away, for a total of 30 matches per team. The teams are then ranked based on a point system in which three points are awarded for a win and one for a draw. In case of a tie between two teams, they are further ranked by the number of wins, then the goal difference, followed by several other factors like head-to-head results.

The highest-ranked team are named Champions, and qualify for the UEFA Champions League group stage, along with the runners-up. The third-ranked team qualify for the Champions League qualifying round. The next two teams on the board qualify for the Europa League.

The two teams with the least points are relegated to the National Football League (Formerly known as the First Division) and are replaced by the top-ranked two teams from that 2nd tier league. Matches used to be played between March and November in order to avoid the infamous Russian winter, but that changed in 2010. Nowadays, they’re played between autumn and spring, like in most European national leagues.

From 1991 to this day, the most decorated team in the RPL’s history is Spartak Moscow with 10 titles and 5 runner-up positions. They are followed by CSKA Moscow and Zenit St. Petersburg with 6 and 5 titles, respectively.

The league’s all-time top scorer is Oleg Veretennikov, who played for many different teams throughout his career. (Soviet Top League appearances are taken into account for individual players.) The record for most appearances is held by CSKA Moscow’s Sergei Ignashevich with 489 outings.

Russian Premier League Derby Matches

Moscow Derby

A rivalry as old as 1922, this derby is the match-up between two of the biggest football teams in Russia’s capital of Moscow – Spartak and CSKA (Although, nowadays there’s something to be said about Lokomotiv.)

It should be noted, however, that this name is sometimes given to any match played between any of the following: Torpedo Moscow, Spartak Moscow, CSKA Moscow, Lokomotiv Moscow and Dynamo Moscow. The current balance of power between these varies, as does the importance of their respective rivalries.

The Rivalry of Two Capitals

Again, this derby has been attached to several different rivalries. Zenit St. Petersburg is always on one end; on the other is any of Moscow’s leading clubs, namely Spartak and CSKA.

Russian Premier League Best Stadiums

VEB Arena

Also known as Arena CSKA due to UEFA sponsorship regulations, this multi-purpose sports stadium has a capacity of just over 30,000. As you might have guessed, it is CSKA’s home turf but is also occasionally used by the Russian national team.

Otkritie Arena

Spartak’s base of operations, the Otkitie arena may be familiar to football fans as one of the venues for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. It has a capacity of 45,360 and was completed in 2010. The name is due to a sponsorship deal with the Otkritie financial group, but it’s usually referred to simply as Spartak Stadium.

Krasnodar Stadium

Built in 2016, Krasnodar’s new stadium is an absolute architectural wonder. It is hailed as one of the most modern sports arenas in the world and can house up to 35,000 spectators.