Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Anzhi Makhachkala plays in a old 20,000-seat stadium in a city so dangerous that the players practice 1,200 miles away.It might also be Europe’s next soccer superpower.
The team was bought last January by Russian oligarch Suleyman Kerimov.
In the 14 months since, Kerimov has brought some of the biggest stars in the game to Russia, and vowed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure.
The odds are against Anzhi. But if Kerimov succeeds and turns the team into a perennial Champions League contender, it’ll be one of the most incredible turn-arounds in sports history.
Anzhi was pretty terrible before Kerimov bought them.
They wallowed in the second tier of Russian soccer for a while before making it back to the Russian Premier League in 2009.
Kerimov has a $200-million investment plan that involves improving the facilities to bring them up to UEFA standards.
Dagestan is only 124 miles north of Iran, and is unstable right now.
Russia sent 20,000 troops to the region last month, and the region has long been plagued by violence from separatist terrorist groups.
It's rumoured that 100 police are killed in the region every year, according to the New York Times.
Carlos was well past his prime when he moved to Anzhi.
But the signing was more symbolic than anything -- it proved that Anzhi could lure a global star to their team.
Guus Hiddink has succeeded on both the club and national level. He joined the team in February, and they've lost just twice since then.
But to really make the season a success, they'll have to get to second place and earn a place in the Champions League qualifying rounds.
Roman Abramovich popularised the concept of 'sugar daddy' billionaires buying middling soccer teams and turning them into champions.
Since he bought Chelsea in 2003, Manchester City, PSG, and Malaga have all been purchased by billionaires looking for a toy.
The Russian Premier League is a full tier below England, Spain, France, Italy, and Germany in terms of quality.
Anzhi is way less established than a team like Man City or Chelsea, so turning them around will take hundreds of millions of dollars and multiple seasons.
It's unclear whether Anzhi can develop its own players domestically to be in accordance with the RPL's restrictions on foreign players.
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