A few days after the announcement of the appointment of Guillermo Abascal as the head coach of Spartak, another Moscow club also decided on a new mentor.
As expected, Alexei Berezutsky left his post, and Vladimir Fedotov took his place, who last season led Sochi to the silver medals of the Russian Football Championship.
The specialist signed a long-term contract with the army team, and also took with him assistants from the previous team - Oleg Fomenko, Murat Iskakov and Radik Yamlikhanov.
“Many leading clubs in the country wanted to see Vladimir Valentinovich in their ranks.
An experienced specialist proved everything with his work in Sochi and Orenburg, where the game was built in a short time and brilliant results were achieved.
We believe that a new victorious chapter begins in the history of PFC CSKA, ”commented the president of the red-blue Evgeny Giner on the appointment of Fedotov.
It is difficult to say how many teams were actually interested in Fedotov's invitation.
Over the past month, Spartak and CSKA were named among the main contenders, but by the beginning of June, rumors about the possible appearance of a mentor in the camp of the red and white gradually faded away.
Perhaps this was influenced by the first victory in the Russian Cup in 19 years, which not only made it possible to smooth out the impression of a disastrous season, but also strengthened faith in Paolo Vanoli.
Or, on the contrary, the club had already decided on a successor, knowing about the desire of the Italian to leave Moscow, and abandoned the idea of inviting the Russian.
At the same time, Fedotov was far from the only candidate for a post in CSKA.
In the same list with him appeared the former Lokomotiv helmsman Marko Nikolic, as well as Jindrich Trpisovsky and Vladimir Ilic, who head Slavia Prague and Maccabi Tel Aviv, respectively.
At the same time, the last of them very evasively answered questions about possible interest from Muscovites and admitted that he had nothing against working in Russia.
One way or another, the choice was made in favor of a proven specialist, who has proven himself excellently in the country.
Given the possible options, the appointment of Fedotov can be called extremely logical.
And not only because negotiations with foreigners were fraught with risk and could well lead CSKA into a situation similar to the one in which Krasnodar found itself in winter.
The team was headed by Daniel Farke, but left it before the start of the spring part of the championship - immediately after the start of the special operation in Ukraine.
In the current environment, it is difficult to demand from European mentors the fulfillment of labor obligations, so their invitation is often fraught with risk.
But not only this made Fedotov a favorite.
For the past five years, he has worked with two RPL teams and in both he showed himself from the best side.
First, he won the FNL with Orenburg and led the club to the country's top division, and then achieved success with Sochi.
In January 2020, he took over the team that occupied the last, 16th place in the championship, and helped it to maintain a residence permit in the Premier League, and in the next two seasons, his wards did not fall below the European Cup zone.
And this is far from the strongest performers.
In the 2020/21 season, the team was in ninth place in terms of squad value (€37.7 million), behind Rostov and Rubin, and seventh in the last draw (€33 million).
For comparison, the selection of players from Dynamo, defeated in the final round, was estimated by the Transfermarkt portal three times more expensive (€104.2 million).
At the same time, it cannot be said that Sochi's achievements were due to luck or the incredible form of the performers, as was the case with Lokomotiv in the second half of the 2020/21 season.
Then the railroad workers did not surpass their opponents in terms of the quality of the game and did not create more chances, but at the same time they regularly took points due to the phenomenal implementation and rescues of Marinato Guilherme.
The problem is that few people manage to maintain such indicators for a long time, so a regression to the average values is inevitable.
In the case of the Fedotov team, everything is a little different.
At the end of the 2021/22 championship, Sochi took second place in terms of expected goals scored xG (50.39) and fourth in terms of the number of expected goals conceded xGA (32.12).
The top 3 in both indicators included Zenit and Dynamo, while the blue-and-whites scored much more than they created (53 goals instead of 46.53 xG).
Yes, Fedotov's wards were also lucky, but this luck was within the margin of error.
For comparison, CSKA was only fifth in xG (43.02) and sixth in xGA (33.42).
And although Igor Akinfeev again looked impressive, and the army team conceded only 29 goals, this did not allow breaking into the top three.
Although the army team ranked higher than in 2021, they failed to get medals for the fourth year in a row.
The last time this happened to them was in the mid-1990s, when the red-blues were left without awards for six years.
And this is taking into account the large-scale winter transfer campaign, during which Yusuf Yazici, Jorge Carrascal, Jesus Medina and Jean-Philip Gbamen replenished the squad.
Apparently, this was the key factor in the issue of changing the head coach.
The leadership of CSKA might consider that Berezutsky failed to squeeze the maximum out of his available resources, and pay attention to a specialist who brought his teams to a qualitatively new level and helped the players jump over their heads.
The army team could not boast of this since the 2018/19 season.
Then they lost a number of age leaders, but unexpectedly became fourth and beat Real Madrid twice in the Champions League.
In fact, the appointment of Fedotov returns to those times when the army leadership was more balanced in choosing a mentor.
Despite all the merits, Ivica Olic and Aleksey Berezutsky did not have the necessary experience to work in such a status team that sets itself only high goals.
Even if earlier both played the role of assistants, but they themselves did not lead teams, and therefore were forced to learn in the process.
Not to say that both failed, but their period of stay at the club cannot be called successful either.
Under the leadership of the Croatian, Muscovites scored an average of 1.44 points per game - the worst result since Juande Ramos.
Under Berezutsky, the army team looked much better (1.74) and even surpassed the performance of the times of Viktor Goncharenko (1.71).
But at the end of his stay in the capital, the Belarusian was noticeably nervous, which was reflected in the performance of the players.
Therefore, the appointment of Fedotov is more like an invitation to Leonid Slutsky.
The only difference is that the specialist led the team in a more modest status.
Before CSKA, he led Moscow to fourth place in the RPL, and then became sixth with Wings of the Soviets.
In turn, many do not hesitate to call the ex-coach of Sochi one of the strongest Russian coaches.
However, all this does not guarantee Fedotov success in CSKA.
Despite the fact that the army team looks like a more stable club from a financial point of view and has a strong squad, the newly minted mentor needs to do a lot of work.
And one of the tasks will be the transfer of the team to a relatively new scheme.
For the past five years, the specialist has preferred the 3-4-3 formation in various variations and is unlikely to decide to abandon it.
The previous time he experimented at the dawn of his career at Orenburg, but then he finally believed in the model with three central defenders.
The Red-Blues, although they tried to act according to this scheme, did not always achieve results.
Last season, Berezutsky used it in 17 matches: he won eight, lost five times and drew four times.
But now CSKA does not have a selection of performers to use this formation.
After the departure of Hördur Magnusson, only Igor Diveev, nominal defensive midfielder Jaka Bijol and injury-prone Bruno Fuchs remained from the central defenders.
Yes, Kirill Nababkin can close this position, but not in the long term.
There is also a shortage of center forwards.
Even in the course of the last championship, it became clear that Anton Zabolotny needed a worthy competitor for a place at the start.
Fedor Chalov and Adolfo Gaich should return from leases in the summer, but there is no certainty about their prospects yet.
According to rumors, the Russian does not want to leave the Swiss Basel, and the Argentine does not yet give reasons to seriously count on him.
Over the past two years, he has visited Salernitana and Huesca, but scored only three goals and three assists in 44 meetings.
There are also gaps in the middle line, formed after the departure of Alan Dzagoev and Ilzat Akhmetov.
Even if in recent years both did not bring much benefit, but their absence must be hastily compensated.
Magomed Ozdoev was named one of the candidates for a replacement, but later this idea was abandoned.
And this is without taking into account the difficulties in the negotiations on the redemption of Yazici and the loss of Mario Fernandez, who decided to temporarily suspend his career.
Both are key performers, and their loss threatens to turn into serious problems at the start of the season, which is just over a month away.
But if rumors are to be believed, there has been progress in both cases.
In early June, the Turkish agent Adem Chebedzhi assured that negotiations were underway, and a replacement had already been found for the naturalized Brazilian.
They will be Red Star defender Milan Gajic, whose contract with the Serbian club has expired.
One way or another, the mentor will have a difficult task.
As is the case with any systemic coach, the process of adapting football players to new requirements and schemes may not be as simple as it seems, as a result of which the results at first will not please either the management or the fans.
But if one of the Russian specialists deserves carte blanche, it is Fedotov.