The Tashkent Gambit: Russia will play Uzbekistan without the leading scorers of the Russian Premier League

For the second training camp in a row, the players of the Russian national team will play with the participant of the last World Cup. At the end of September, Valery Karpin's team hosted Iran (2-0), and now they went to visit Uzbekistan, which made it to the World Cup for the first time in its history. The Russians' opponent is undergoing a renovation under the leadership of the famous Italian Fabio Cannavaro, and our national team itself is approaching the meeting amid questions about the personnel decisions of the coaching staff. In particular, the two top scorers of the current Russian championship, Maxim Glushenkov and Alexander Sobolev, were not called to the November matches. At the same time, Matvey Safonov, Alexey Batrakov and Alexey Miranchuk, who performed abroad, were at Karpin's disposal.

The composition of Uzbekistan

Last fall, Uzbekistan won the Asian selection and sensationally made it to the World Cup, becoming only the third post-Soviet team after Russia and Ukraine to qualify for the World Cup.

However, the head coach who created this success, Timur Kapadze, a local specialist, was dismissed from his post very soon. He himself was appointed to the position in January 2025, replacing Slovenian Srečko Katanec, who left the national team for health reasons. Apparently, Kapadze was initially considered a temporary figure, so even his historical success did not save him.

In October last year, Fabio Cannavaro, a high-status Italian, world champion and winner of the 2006 Golden Ball, and one of the few defenders in history to receive the most prestigious individual prize in world football, was appointed to prepare Uzbekistan for the debut World Cup.

However, as a coach, having more than 10 years of experience, he mostly worked not in the top championships — the UAE, Saudi Arabia, China (where he won the national championship with Guangzhou in 2019) and Croatia. In Italy's Serie A, he had only a short stint with Udinese in 2024.

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Karpin's team will play against Fabio Cannavaro's team and Latin Americans who have never been to the World Cup.

At the same time, of the national teams before Uzbekistan, the 53-year-old specialist worked only at the head of China. Unsurprisingly, he had little success at the World Championships in the USA, Canada and Mexico, where the Uzbeks lost all three matches in the group — Colombia (1:3), Portugal (0:5) and DR Congo (1:3).

But Cannavaro remained in charge of the national team and is preparing it for the upcoming Asian Cup, which will be held in December 2027 in Saudi Arabia. In recent friendly matches, Uzbekistan has played with rivals from its confederation. So, at the last training camp, he won against Iran (3:1) and Syria (4:1), and also lost to South Korea (0:2). And after Russia, the Uzbeks will meet with Saudi Arabia.

The Italian coach announced a partial roster update after the World Cup, explaining that past achievements no longer count. Nevertheless, a number of leaders remain in the national team. In particular, the players we know well from playing in Russia are former Rostov striker Eldor Shomurodov and former CSKA midfielder Abbosbek Fayzullaev, who are currently playing in Turkey for Istanbul Basaksehir. Both are on the list for the match with our national team.

Uzbekistan is on the 59th line in the FIFA ranking. Russia is on the 35th.

"Russia will have an interesting opponent at a fairly good level, especially against the background of the experience gained at the World Cup," Vyacheslav Koloskov, honorary president of the RFU, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — Let this experience be negative, but the very fact of reaching the World Cup suggests that Uzbekistan has a strong team, on the level of Iran and Nigeria, with whom our team played recently. And it will be very useful to test your strength against her background.

The Russian national team

The head coach of the Russian national team, Valery Karpin, made resonant personnel changes, not taking the two top scorers of the current Russian championship, Maxim Glushenkov and Alexander Sobolev, to the November training camp.

Glushenkov did not even appear on the expanded list, which raised big questions. There were rumors that the reason was a verbal altercation between Maxim and Karpin in the locker room after the match with Nigeria. After that, the player allegedly suggested not to call him.

Karpin recently explained the absence of an attacking midfielder in an interview with Rossiya 24 channel by saying that only those who want to play for the national team should play for them. At the same time, he did not rule out Glushenkov's return to the team next year.

Nevertheless, it raised questions that one of the leaders of Zenit St. Petersburg was not in the national team. Suspicions were especially aroused when Alexander Sobolev, the blue-white-blue striker, was not in the final squad. The national team staff referred to his health problems, but after that, Alexander entered the field as if nothing had happened in the match of the Russian championship against Rostov (2:2).

This only reinforced rumors about some kind of informal agreement with Zenit not to burden its players — only midfielder Artem Karpukas was from St. Petersburg at the November training camp. Meanwhile, some players of Zenit's competitors had previously been called up to the national team and were at its disposal without even playing. For example, this was the case with CSKA defender Kirill Danilov at the last training camp.

There were similar questions about the inclusion of Dynamo Moscow defender Maxim Osipenko in the final list, but in the end he was left out of the national team. Otherwise, Karpin assembled about the same composition as usual.

The match with Uzbekistan will take place on the evening of November 12, at 18:00 Moscow time. On November 10, the national team flew to Tashkent — among the players were two star legionnaires: goalkeeper of the French PSG Matvey Safonov and midfielder of the Turkish Galatasaray Alexei Batrakov. The next day, the midfielder of the American "Atlanta United" Alexei Miranchuk arrived.

The second match of the November training camp will be held on November 17 in Krasnodar. The opponent will be Venezuela. This meeting will be the last for our team in 2026.