Football Season Guide

Sochi are excited ahead of their first ever top flight season, with place amongst the elite secured after finishing second in the lower division last term. Coach Tochilin doesn’t have any top flight experience, but in his first year in charge at Sochi he quickly became crowd-favourite. Sochi are preparing to use 5 at the back, most likely formation 5-4-1, and they already added new goalkeeper and 4 defenders to their ranks. This should improve the defensive stability, but up field the situation is very worrying at the minute. Last season’s main striker Barsov is currently recovering from ACL injury that might see him miss all games up until the winter break and the only other typical striker in the squad is the recently signed Obukhov, who has no top flight experience whatsoever. In general Sochi have very small squad at the start of the season, only 22 senior players (3 goalkeepers) at time of writing, but the close relationships between the team and giants Zenit and Krasnodar are no secret. This might see many surplus to requirement players from these 2 top clubs loaned to Sochi soon and, if this happens, the depth will be improved. The other problematic area seems to be the midfield with not a single technically gifted player in the ranks at the minute. All this will certainly see Sochi adopt counterattacking style of play, plus coach Tochilin is known for his attention on set pieces. This already paid off last term when Sochi scored the most goals from corner-kick deliveries in any of the top 3 divisions in Russia.