After a forced pause, the coaches of RPL clubs began to trust young footballers more due to their tight schedule and the ability to make five substitutions in one match. RT remembered the most prominent representatives of the "COVID-19 generation" - the players who got their chance thanks to the epidemic.
Danila Prokhin (Zenit)
The busy schedule of summer matches forced the coaches to trust the youth more often, and even Zenit was no exception. However, Sergei Semak gave the reservists a chance after winning the championship. So, three full matches in the RPL were played by a 19-year-old student of the academy and captain of Zenit-2 Danila Prokhin.
A native of the city of Kirishi, he became the first center-back with a Russian passport in 20 years, who played three games in a row for Zenit in the Russian championship. Prokhin did not always have enough confidence and composure, but he did not make gross productive mistakes. Moreover, the young footballer was noted for amazing passing accuracy - 91%.
Now Danila has secured the position of the fourth central defender in the cage behind Yaroslav Rakitskiy, Deyan Lovren and Yordan Osorio. And if in the Champions League it is too early to release him on the field, then in the domestic championship it is the Russian who can help save the strength on the basis of the distance.
Dmitry Rybchinsky (Lokomotiv)
Rybchinsky was remembered by Lokomotiv fans for a friendly tournament in Qatar in February. Then the fast and technical midfielder showed himself excellently in the match for the second place with Rostov. On that day, the pupil of the club academy was one of the best on the field. He designed all the attacks of the railroad workers and scored a goal himself.
But in official matches, Yuri Semin did not trust the young football player too much, only twice releasing him to replace him in the championship. With the arrival of Marko Nikolic, the situation changed. After the resumption of the season, Rybchinsky took part in five games, and two of them started in the starting lineup. At the same time, Dmitry came out both on the left and on the right edge of the midfield. The 21-year-old midfielder has two assists for the Miranchuk brothers in the matches against Rubin and Ural.
Also in the line-up of Loko it is worth noting the debutant striker born in 2000 Timur Suleimanov. In the summer, the forward came on as a substitute four times in the RPL and even scored a canceled ball in the match against Sochi.
Maxim Kutovoy, Nikita Sergeev, Alex Matsukatov, Denis Adamov (Krasnodar)
Also in the spring in the RPL several pupils of Krasnodar made their debut. However, they all did not spend much time on the field, limiting themselves to substitutions at the end of meetings.
Goalkeeper Denis Adamov should be singled out from the general row, who for a long time was behind Matvey Safonov, Stanislav Kritsyuk and Andrey Sinitsyn and had to be content with playing for Krasnodar-2 in the FNL.
However, Denis patiently waited in the wings and finally waited. In the match with Dynamo, Safonov received a red card, and Adamov appeared on the field. The young goalkeeper conceded twice from the blue and white players, but did not allow him to print his goal against Akhmat in the last round.
Konstantin Maradishvili (CSKA Moscow)
Maradishvili appeared much more often on the field. The 20-year-old defensive midfielder has become another CSKA graduate, who played in the team under Viktor Goncharenko. At first, the Belarusian specialist released Konstantin only at the end of the meetings, but after the season resumed he turned into the main player of the team.
Maradishvili performs a huge amount of rough work in the support zone, but at the same time CSKA starts attacks correctly. On average, in each RPL match, he made 27 passes, 78.5% of which were accurate. At the same time, the footballer has a good shot and is ready to demonstrate it at an opportunity (an average of 1.1 per game). But Maradishvili has not yet managed to score points for the performance.
Danila Vedernikov and Danila Proshlyakov ("Rostov")
“Rostov”, having played with “Sochi” by the efforts of young pupils of the club academy, became the leader of the RPL in terms of the number of football players born in 2000 and younger - 16 people. However, if you do not take that game into account, Valery Karpin did not often trust the youth. So, after the resumption of the season, from among the above players, the coach more or less regularly used only Danila Vedernikov and Danila Proshlyakov. By the way, left-back Vedernikov became another pupil of Krasnodar, who made his debut in the RPL.
Forward Proshlyakov moved to Rostov from Spartak and took part in six RPL matches in the summer. The forward is remembered so far only by the removal in the match with Arsenal. The pupil of the red and whites came on as a substitute at the beginning of the second half and managed to get two yellow cards.
Igor Shkolik, Maxim Danilin, Vladislav Karapuzov (Dynamo)
Young football players are much more actively trusted at Dynamo. This is not surprising, because the head coach of the blue and white Kirill Novikov previously worked with the youth team. And already at the end of the season, three pupils of the club academy made their debut in the RPL at once: Igor Shkolik, Maxim Danilin and Vladislav Karapuzov.
Moreover, Novikov was not afraid to confide in them in the last rounds, when the blue and white fought for tickets to European cups. So, both Shkolik and Danilin got into the starting line-up for the most important game with Krasnodar. This did not prevent Dynamo from winning.
And the main character of that confrontation was the 21-year-old striker Vyacheslav Grulev, who returned to the team from loan in Nizhny Novgorod. First, he earned a removal for Safonov, and then opened an account.
Pavel Maslov (Spartak)
In the summer, 20-year-old Maslov played in another capital team “Spartak”. Moreover, the student of the CSKA Academy came out both in the center of defense and on the right edge of the defense. The player, who made his debut in the FNL at the age of 15, acted quite calmly and reliably, practically avoiding gross mistakes.
Appearing on the right edge of the defense in the match against Akhmat, the footballer immediately scored the first point for performance in Spartak - he gave an assist to Roman Zobnin.
However, the impressions of his game were spoiled by the cup meeting with Zenit. Pavel, along with another young defender Ilya Gaponov on the flank of the defense, could not cope with opponents. So, Maslov at the end of the first half failed to stop Malcolm's breakthrough, and as a result, the Brazilian performed an effective cross at Daler Kuzyaev.
Daniil Khlusevich (Arsenal)
19-year-old midfielder Daniil Khlusevich played for Arsenal in Tula in the summer. The Simferopol native took advantage of the absence of Robert Bauer, who never returned to Russia from Germany for family reasons, and firmly took his place on the right flank of the midfield.
Khlusevich has five matches in the RPL and one goal. In the penultimate round, Daniil opened the scoring in the match with Ural after a corner kick (3: 1). Also, the midfielder managed to become the team leader in terms of the number of tackles (on average 2.6 per match). He is also good at dribbling (on average 2 attempts per game and second place in the team).
Danila Smirnov (Wings of the Soviets)
Another footballer born in 2001, who made his debut in the RPL in the summer, was Danila Smirnov, midfielder of Krylia Sovetov, who had taken off in the FNL. Andrey Talalaev was not afraid to trust the player at the end of the final matches of the season, and he spent a total of 52 minutes on the field.
In addition to him, two performers born in 2000 made their debut in the RPL as part of the Samarans: Vladislav Tyurin and Dmitry Molchanov. Well, Maxim Glushenkov, loaned from Spartak, scored three goals, opening the scoring in the Premier League, and gave one assist.