A few years ago, it would have been Rostov struggling for survival whilst Dinamo Moscow would have been striving for the title. How times change and these sides are completely different propositions from what they used to be.
Rostov are the Russian version of Leicester City and from being down in the dumps a year ago, they now have a serious chance of winning the title. Despite a poor result against struggling Mordovia a couple of weeks ago they picked themselves up with a win against European hopefuls Lokomotiv Moscow last time out.
Dinamo sacked their head coach Andrey Kobolev this week with just three games to go and the club hovering dangerously above the relegation places. The argument for this is that it will shock the team into performing and pull them to safety, as so often happens in football.
The club of the former secret police are arguably Russia’s most successful club and have never been relegated from the Russian or Soviet top division before. Sergei Chikishev, the club’s Head of youth development will take charge against Rostov and it will be interesting to see if he can get anything out of this very young Dinamo side.
Having said that, Rostov have the best defence in the league having only conceded 19 goals this season largely thanks to old-school coach Kurban Berdyev whilst Dinamo lack any firepower going forward and have not scored for two consecutive games. I expect Rostov to continue their title challenge with a win to nil.