1998 in Russian football

1998 in Russian football was marked by Spartak Moscow's sixth national title.

National team

Russia national football team began their qualification for the Euro 2000.

Date	Venue	Opponents	Score^1	Competition	Russia scorers	Match Report
18 February 1998	Olympic Stadium, Athens (A)	Greece	1–1	F	Igor Kolyvanov	RussiaTeam
25 March 1998	Dynamo Stadium, Moscow (H)	France	1–0	F	Sergey Yuran	RussiaTeam
22 April 1998	Lokomotiv Stadium, Moscow (H)	Turkey	1–0	F	Vladimir Beschastnykh	RussiaTeam
27 May 1998	Silesia Stadium, Chorzów (A)	Poland	1–3	F	Aleksey Gerasimenko	RussiaTeam
30 May 1998	Boris Paichadze Stadium, Tbilisi (A)	Georgia	1–1	F	Igor Simutenkov	RussiaTeam
19 August 1998	Eyravallen, Örebro (A)	Sweden	0–1	F		RussiaTeam
10 October 1998	Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow (H)	France	2–3	ECQ	Igor Yanovskiy, Aleksandr Mostovoi	uefa
14 October 1998	Laugardalsvöllur, Reykjavík (A)	Iceland	0–1	ECQ		uefa
18 November 1998	Estádio Plácido Castelo, Fortaleza (A)	Brazil	1–5	ECQ	Oleg Kornaukhov	RussiaTeam

1. Russia score given first

Key

• H = Home match
• A = Away match
• F = Friendly
• ECQ = 2000 UEFA European Football Championship qualifying, Group 4

Leagues

The Russian league system underwent reorganization for the 1998 season. The "leagues" were renamed "divisions". The Second Division was extended to six zones with 16-22 teams (compared to three zones of the Second League), while the Third League was abolished. These changes reduced the number of levels in Russian professional football to three.

Top Division

First Division

Saturn won the First Division, winning their first promotion to the Top Division. Runners-up Lokomotiv Nizhny Novgorod made their return to the top flight.

			P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
P	1	Saturn	42	24	12	6	73	34	+39	84
P	2	Lokomotiv Nizhny Novgorod	42	23	8	11	65	34	+31	77
	3	Sokol	42	21	13	8	58	32	+26	76
	4	Kristall	42	23	3	16	59	47	+12	72
	5	Arsenal	42	18	11	13	65	53	+12	65
	6	Lada-Grad	42	19	7	16	65	63	+2	64
	7	Rubin	42	19	6	17	56	50	+6	63
	8	Dynamo	42	16	15	11	51	40	+11	63
	9	Gazovik-Gazprom	42	18	6	18	53	58	–5	60
	10	Fakel	42	17	9	16	54	45	+9	60
	11	Lokomotiv Chita	42	17	8	17	60	50	+10	59
	12	Anzhi	42	17	6	19	47	56	–9	57
	13	Metallurg	42	16	8	18	41	50	–9	56
	14	Tom	42	15	11	16	54	45	+9	56
	15	Spartak	42	15	11	16	49	52	–3	56
	16	Lokomotiv Saint Petersburg	42	14	11	17	38	41	–3	53
PO	17	Neftekhimik	42	15	7	20	44	56	–12	52
R	18	Druzhba	42	13	11	18	45	55	–10	50
R	19	Lada-Togliatti-VAZ	42	15	9	18	52	70	–18	48^1
R	20	Kuban	42	10	13	19	42	68	–26	43
R	21	Irtysh	42	11	8	23	36	58	–22	41
R	22	KAMAZ-Chally	42	7	5	30	32	82	–50	20^2

¹ Lada-Togliatti-VAZ were docked 6 points for not building pitch heating system
² KAMAZ-Chally were docked 6 points for not paying transfer fee in time

Andradina of Arsenal became the top goalscorer with 27 goals.

Second Division

Of six clubs that finished first in their respective Second Division zones, five with the best records were promoted to the First Division, and one went to a promotion/relegation playoff.

The clubs promoted automatically were

• FC Spartak-Orekhovo Orekhovo-Zuyevo (Centre)
• FC Volgar-Gazprom Astrakhan (South)
• FC Torpedo-Victoria Nizhny Novgorod (Povolzhye)
• FC Amkar Perm (Ural)
• FC Metallurg Krasnoyarsk (East)

Torpedo-ZIL won the play-off and were promoted to the First Division at the expense of Neftekhimik.

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
FC Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk	1–3	FC Torpedo-ZIL Moscow (West)	1–1	0–2

Cup

The Russian Cup was won by Spartak Moscow, who beat Lokomotiv Moscow 1–0 in the final.

UEFA club competitions

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup 1997-98

Lokomotiv Moscow reached the semifinal of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup 1997-98. They eliminated AEK Athens in the quarterfinal but were stopped by VfB Stuttgart in the semifinal.

UEFA Cup 1997-98

Spartak Moscow reached the semifinal of the UEFA Cup 1997-98 after beating Ajax Amsterdam in both quarterfinal matches. However, in the semifinal Internazionale Milano F.C. won both matches against Spartak 2–1.

UEFA Intertoto Cup 1998

Two Russian clubs played in the UEFA Intertoto Cup 1998, both being eliminated in the third round. Baltika Kaliningrad recorded victories over PFC Spartak Varna and OD Trencin before facing FK Vojvodina, and Shinnik Yaroslavl, who had a bye to the second round, defeated Turun Palloseura before being knocked out by Valencia CF.

UEFA Champions League 1998-99

Spartak Moscow qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League 1998-99 by defeating PFC Litex Lovech with an aggregate score of 11–2. Spartak finished third in Group C with Internazionale Milano F.C., Real Madrid, and SK Sturm Graz.

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup 1998-99

Lokomotiv Moscow began their way to the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup 1998-99 semifinal by eliminating Arsenal Kyiv and SC Braga in the first two rounds.

UEFA Cup 1998-99

Rotor Volgograd were eliminated after the second qualifying round of UEFA Cup 1998-99, losing twice to Red Star Belgrade. Dynamo Moscow were more successful, winning on aggregate against Polonia Warszawa in the second qualifying round and against Skonto FC in the first round. Their campaign ended after two losses to Real Sociedad in the second round.

References

• National team fixtures (Russian)
• League and cup results
• League scorers (Russian)
• UEFA Champions League results
• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup results: 1997-98 1998-99
• UEFA Cup results: 1997-98 1998-99
• UEFA Intertoto Cup results