Chapter 31: The Moscow Derby is Coming

As the name suggests, the Moscow Derby is a match between clubs belonging to the city of Moscow. Due to the large number of football clubs in the Moscow metropolitan area and the wide fan base, every Moscow derby is closely watched. Excluding the minor leagues and cups, in the Russian Premier League alone, there are 12 Moscow derbies per season.

It can be said that the Moscow derby is an important topic in Russian football, due to the uneven distribution of Russian Premier League teams, and several major clubs in Moscow have a considerable number of non-local and foreign fans in addition to local fans. And because of the extensive media coverage and complicated relationships with other rival clubs, the Moscow derby is never short of heat and sparks of fierce collisions.

One of the most influential of the Moscow derbies was the match between Spartak Moscow and CSKA Moscow.

"Moscow Derby" is the established name of the match between these two teams.

It is also one of the oldest derbies in Russia and in Europe as a whole.

The fan base and home area of the two sides are very different, and it has also created countless historical grievances. The earliest head-to-head meeting between the two sides was in June 1922, and it has been almost 100 years since the two sides met 192 times, with Spartak Moscow winning 83 and CSKA winning 72 and 37 draws.

Another much-talked-about Moscow derby is the clash between Dynamo Moscow and Spartak Moscow, one of the oldest extant Russian-Moscow derby, with the first meeting between the two teams dating back to the quarter-finals of the Moscow Spring League on 17 June 1923, when Spartak Moscow's predecessor, Red Prenia, won 3-2.

In the 72 years since, the two teams have played a total of 184 matches, with Sparta winning 70 and Dynamo winning 52. 62 matches ended in a draw.

Of those matches, 152 were official matches and a total of 479 goals were scored, with 245 for Spartans and 234 for Dynamo. Sparta won 20 times by the big margin and Dynamo 15.

This time, Spartak Moscow faced an opponent with CSKA Moscow.

Similar to the sworn enemy Dynamo Moscow, CSKA also has an official background.

CSKA Moscow was founded in 1901 as a ski club with an army background. Of course, this army was not the Soviet Red Army, but the Tsarist Russian team. From 1924, OLLS accepted the reorganization of the Revolutionary Military Council, and in 1928 the Central Army Army, abbreviated as CDKA, was formally established.

In 1936, the Soviet Union established a national league, in which Moscow teams competed. Who will support these clubs? In fact, what kind of social class there was at that time, there was what kind of team builder. At that time, there were three strong teams, the Central Army Army had an army and interior ministry background, the old team Dynamo Moscow had a strong KGB background at that time, and Spartak Moscow was seen as a civilian team.

The Spartans, officially recorded as a Moscow trade union, were formed in 1922 against the backdrop of the Soviet regime's political crisis and economic difficulties, which allowed the restoration of a certain degree of capitalism. In addition, the Lokomotiv Moscow team had a background in the Ministry of Railways, while the Moscow torpedo team came from a group of workers at an arsenal in the south of the city. The league championship during that period was basically divided between Dynamo and Sparta.

From Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 to Germany's surrender in 1945, the National League was at a standstill. With the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, the CSKA Moscow Army within the Soviet Army played football in this isolation from the West. This period was also the golden age of CSKA, which won five championships and two runners-up finishes in the Soviet League in seven years, from 1945 to 1951, and overpowered Dynamo Moscow, the main rivals of the time.

The 1952 Helsinki Olympics were the first time that the Soviet Union entered the world sports arena. Since there was no national football association in the Soviet Union at that time, the Central Army Army was honored to represent the Soviet Union in the competition and finally reached the semi-finals. However, due to the loss in the play-offs to Yugoslavia, which had taken the wrong "course", Stalin in a fit of rage disbanded the club team. The main players of the team have switched to teams such as Dynamo, Sparta, Torpedo and Lokomotiv.

After Stalin's death in 1953, the Central Army was rebuilt.

After several years of political struggle, Khrushchev came to power and criticized Stalin. In 1956, the Soviet football team, represented by Yashin, won the Melbourne Olympic Games, and some of the members were still former CSKA players who had competed in the Olympics four years earlier.

It can be said that the glory days of CSKA were almost half of the Soviet team, which was very similar to the situation of Bayern Munich.

Dynamo Moscow is half dead, so the derby between CSKA Moscow and Spartak Moscow smells of gunpowder the strongest.

Lin Supo had no idea that one day he would come to the Luzhniki Stadium as a player.

His fondest memory of the Luzhniki Stadium is a rainy night in Moscow, where John Terry slipped and cried with Cristiano Ronaldo.

When he came here one day as a league away player, he couldn't help but be envious.

Now the best stadium in Russia is the Luzhniki Stadium, the majority shareholder of CSKA is the Russian Ministry of Defense, and the money is deep, compared to Spartak, which does not even have a home stadium, it is shabby to death.

What's wrong with being strong in recent years?

It's not a bunch of poor people!

The banner played by the home fans ridiculed Spartak, and it can be said that the fact that Spartak did not have its own stadium has become the best point of attack for the opposing fans.

Spartacus: We are the defending champions.

Rival fans: You don't have your own home stadium.

Spartak: We had the most internationals in the last World Cup.

Rival fans: You don't have your own home stadium.

Spartacus: We pay the most attention.

Rival fans: You don't have your own home stadium.

Spartacus: We are the people's team.

Rival fans: You don't have your own home stadium.

Spartacus: ......

The last time we met the opponent was not the Moscow team, and it was also used to mock Spartak with the pitch. As a derby rival, CSKA has been equally ruthless in this matter.

A huge banner reads "Welcome to Luzhniki...... Poor homeless worms".

The corners of Lin Supo's eyes jumped, is this the Moscow derby.

Nima is completely unreasonable.

Generally, it is to look at the championship of the team, and only those who have more champions have the right to speak, and now Spartak will be ridiculed every time they meet an opponent because they do not have their own stadium, which is completely congenital.

Lin Supo, who has always been very satisfied with the current team, finally felt Spartak's biggest weakness.

It's really unpleasant to be ridiculed by an opponent before you even play.