[Editor’s note:At first sight, it may seem odd to post an article about something as frivolous as the Russian football (soccer) championship on this blog, but as Grigory Pasko points out below, in today’s Russia, even football has a political component. Historically the championship has always been won by one of several Moscow powerhouses such as CSKA or «Spartak», but now that there’s a “St. Petersburg team” in the Kremlin, we should have guessed that it was only a matter of time before St. Petersburg’s «Zenit» would end Moscow’s dominance by miraculously wining its first-ever football championship, on November 11. Not surprisingly, Russia’s new flagship team is proudly sponsored by such fine Russian corporations as «Gazprom», «Sibur», «Gazprom Mezhregional», «Sogaz», «Gazprombank», and «Gazpromneft» (all «Gazprom» subsidiaries, if you haven’t guessed), and has a “special relationship” with that other «Gazprom»-sponsored team, FC Schalke 04 of Germany’s Bundesliga.] Bilateral relations. FC Schalke 04 (the ones in the in blue «Gazprom» jerseys) host «Zenit» (in the white «Gazprom» jerseys) in a friendly on 20 January 2007. The Russian «Gazprom» team won 2-1. Once again about the national pride of the Great Russians By Grigory Pasko, journalist The recently-crowned Russian football champion, St. Petersburg’s «Zenit», are a “Russian” team in name only. Judge for yourselves: the team’s best players have names like Fatih Tekke (Turkish), Radek Širl (Czech – he scored the winning goal in the championship game), Alejandro Dominguez (Argentinian), Nicolas Lombaerts (Belgian – he replaced the Norwegian Erik Hagen in the starting lineup), and Kamil Čontofalský (Slovak)… Nor can you call the coaching staff Russian, either – both manager Dick Advocaat and his assistant Cornelius Pot hail from the Netherlands. So all the proud cries we’re hearing these days about “the great victory of the great Russian team” are at a bit far-fetched at the very least, and groundless at worst. But the people need circuses to go with their bread. Bread continues to be available (albeit now at twice the price of only a few months ago) thanks to the high price for crude oil on world markets. Those same petrodollars also go to buy circuses from the west, by way of the acquisition of foreign coaches and players for Russian professional sports teams.