Russia's far east

The curtain was bought down on the National football league, the second tier in Russian football last weekend. The second leg of the promotion play-offs between two Premier league sides and the third and fourth placed national football league teams took place. One of those second tier sides was SKA Khabarovsk. A team unfancied that had in recent years cemented their place in mid-table in the second tier. The club are based in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk and had never graced the top tier, until now.

SKA Khabarovsk by finishing fourth entered the promotion/relegation play-off with FC Orenburg who had finished 13th on their inferior head-to-head record with Anji Makhachkala. The first leg was held in Khabarovsk's Lenin Stadium to see a nervy 0-0 draw. A positive result given they prevented their higher placed opponents scoring an away goal. 

The second leg was equally as nervy, three days later and some 7,300 km away from home. Extra-time came and went without either side's net bulging as the lottery of penalties loomed large. Just under 7,000 in attendance were to witness the men from the east secure a first ever promotion into the Premier league with a 5-3 win in the shoot-out. The winning penalty being dispatched by Ruslan Koryan after Andrei Malykh had the misfortune to be the only player in the shoot-out not to convert for his side. 

That promotion bought SKA Khabarovsk into the world media. Unfortunately it wasn't much to do with their shock promotion from mid-table to promotion in twelve months but to do with their geographic location. SKA being based in Khabarovsk are less than 30 miles away from the Chinese border and this season were one of just two sides from the far eastern corner of the country to participate in the second tier. 

With the relegation of Siberian side Tom Tomsk from the Premier league next season SKA will be over 6,500 km from their nearest opponents in FK Ural from Yekaterinburg. Their furthest trip incidentally will be to Zenit's new Krestovsky stadium which is 8,850 km away from SKA's home. 

SKA's promotion means they are the first far eastern team to play top tier football in Russia since 2008 when FC Luch-Energiya, based even further away in the port of Vladivostok, were relegated after finished bottom of the league. Luch-Energiya were despised by many of their Western opponents based purely on their geographic location. Complaints about the distance were plentiful and got particularly nasty when CSKA Moskva's Igor Akinfeev remarked about the club by saying "they should play in the Japanese league". That after Luch had torn into CSKA 4-0 in Vladivostok in 2007. 

However SKA's promotion isn't a sign that football in the far east is booming, far from it in fact. As stated SKA will be the first side from the region in the top tier in nine years. While SKA were celebrating their unlikely promotion, down the road (in jest of course, it's 750 km away), Luch-Energiya were coming to terms with their relegation to the third tier (on the pitch, there is suggestions that they will replace FK Chita in the second tier next season). This relegation being their second into the third tier since their top flight relegation in 2008. 

SKA will be just the third different side to play top level football from the region since the break up of the Soviet Union. The first side was FK Okean Nakhodka who to date remain the furthest eastern team to ever play in a top flight European league but are also no longer in existence having been liquidated in 2015. 

Even the second tier has been sparsely represented in recent years. There was the 2014-15 season where SKA and Luch were joined by FC Sakhalin from the Sakhalin Oblast which is located off the Russian mainland and above Japan's northernmost Hokkaido island. Amazingly FC Sakhalin took part in the second tier that featured Baltika-Kaliningrad and thus the world record for the longest domestic league game was set with 10,500 km between the teams. 

Teams from the region are always up against the geography. The Russian football federation did introduce a procedure to help ease the financial burden on the travel costs to and from the region a few years back. This was to group both SKA and Luch into one long haul journey, so for example, some teams out west would play Luch away and then a few days later play SKA away before jetting back west and likewise for SKA and Luch to play two away games in quick succession before flying back east. This being done a couple of times a season to cut the air miles slightly.

Challenge to stay up:
SKA's challenge is now to stay in the top flight. Doing so will of course be difficult for obvious reasons. The blueprint for them can be how Luch stayed in the top flight for two full seasons in the 2000s. In Luch's first season back in the top flight in 2006, they amassed twelve victories, eleven of which came at home. The following season they narrowly avoided the drop. This was in no small part achieved by their seven home victories. Of the thirty-two points collected that season, twenty-six were gained at home. The blueprint is clear for SKA, make the home advantage count.