Welcome to Vladivostok - Season 1

Welcome to Vladivostok


The name Vladivostok loosely translates from Russian as "the ruler of the East"

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Vladivostok is a city and the center of Primorsky Krai, Russia, located at the head of the Golden Horn Bay, not far from Russia's borders with China and North Korea.
The city is the home port of the Russian Pacific Fleet and the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean.


The Club


Luch (Vladivostok)


The Manager

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Andriy Shevchenko


Our Home
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10,000 seater stadium (Dinamo)

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Here we are in Vladivostok, Russia on the borders of Asia, home of Luch who currently play in the 2nd division of Russian Football.

Based in the far east of the country, their location poses a significant problem for away teams. 9 Hours by flight from Moscow.

When playing Zenit St Petersberg at home, a trio of Zenit fans drove 15,000 km across the country only for their car to break down when in Vladivostok, leaving them unable to drive home. These fans thus took the Trans Siberian Railway back to St Petersberg. Upon which the club rewarded them with a new car on October 1, 2006.

There has been much controversy about whether the Russian league should be split into two leagues, An East & West division, however this is yet to happen.

Igor Akinfeev, the CSKA Moscow goalkeeper, said that "they should play in the Japanese League", when his team lost 4-0 after a seven hour flight.

Former Ukrainian International Andriy Shevchenko has been offered his first role in management after a stint of coaching and his first step is to take Luch to the top flight of Russian football.

As we are so close to the like of Korea, China & Japan I'm hoping we can attract a few talents from those country's. I'd also like to see how we fare in European competition one day with how far we are from the rest of Europe.



So that's how far out east we are from everyone else, but still counted as a european football team. Before we need to worry about any of that though we have a big challenge in getting out of the Russian 2nd division.

Looking forward to this challenge and getting to know the club!

Season 1



We have a fairly decent value and decent sized stadium for a second division but with the media putting us in 12th for the end of the season were not predicted to be puling any trees down this time around.

Looking at the squad it's very average with only 2 or 3 stand out players for this division so it's going to be a very tough season. With what i have seen on day one i have put the squad together as below and as you can see we are lacking a few players in certain positions so i'll be straight into the free transfer market as a 30k budget isn't going to stretch very far.

Finding it difficult to get a pre-season going. My board won't even sanction any away trips to other Russian sides and most of them want massive fee's more than we will make back to travel to us.

I wonder if any Chinese or Korean teams will visit us.

Season 1 - 29/6/13

We needed to be ready for the season so after arranging a few friendly's with teams who would agree to play us i stepped up the fitness training and made sure we drilled on defending and attacking. All whilst our chairman worked to get the players i wanted signed for the new season.

We could only fit 4 pre season games in before the season kicked off.



Im fairly happy with how we played considering our signings are not through the door yet with contract talks still on going. I wanted these games just to get the players in shape though.

In just 8 days time we host Arsenal Tula at home for my first game in charge and Luch.


Preparation nearly complete

Season 1 - 4/7/13

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''Shevchenko looks to homeland for reinforcements''



As we had no LB in the squad we needed one quickly. I was made up when i spotted Voronin available on a free and like me he's an ex Dynamo Kiev man.

He's a key player for this division so that is the LB position nailed down he cost us £1500 a week but he'll be worth it.

Just a few days until our first game so i need to finish up with these last signings.

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Just a few more contracts to print off

Season 1 - 7/7/13

Finally it's here, the first day of the new season. We have worked hard on fitness and tactics in the pre season so hopefully it can pay off today.


The Luch fans pack out the stadium ready to see Shevchenko take charge for the first time.

Im hoping we can start well considering we are at home and i'll like to make our home ground a fortress from day one especially with the away teams travel nightmares each fortnight being a benefit to us.
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A great start! From the first minute we were all over them and every attack looked like it could be a goal. We pushed on the second half but i wanted to rest a few key players so took them off just after half time. Really happy we have come away with a clean sheet and the 4 goals, i thought it was going to be a much tighter game before kick off.

Krendelev looks very dangerous on that left wing, he could be a key man this season.



If we can play how we did today for the rest of the season i see no problem in us going straight up but let's just take it one game at a time.



The team made headlines out of Vladivostok aswell with 6 of our players named in the team of the week

Season 1 - 4/9/13

Apart from Voronin no other major signings came in apart from 2 Russian youngsters who i may rotate and a 33 year old nigerian CB who has come in to cover our first team. I would of liked to bring in a few more quality players but most were not interested in a move to the east and the ones who were just wanted to much in wages.



So not many players in this season and no outgoings either. I tried to shift a few fringe players to free up some wage budget but no-one was interested.
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15/8/13



8 games into the campaign and we are doing fantastic. I hoped we would keep up our home form from day one but we have done even better and remained unbeaten so far.
Although the team lacks quality except for a few key players i feel the training i drilled into them in the pre-season has payed off.

The Russian Cup is not a priority for me this season so i choose to field our fringe players for our 4th round tie and they still came out on top.

We have been drawn at home against FC Ural who are struggling in the top division for the 5th round so I'm going to field a better side for this one. If we pull that off i may be convinced to actually put a fight up for this competition.

I'd say most of our success so far has been down to this man.



Whenever he is on the ball we always look a danger with him chipping in with goals and assists every game. He seems a class above this league, my main priority will be keeping him fit for the season.

Season 1 - 20/9/13



We have finally seen our first defeat of the season but set a club record of 8 games unbeaten which is great for a team i thought would struggle this season. Our streak puts us top of the league at this point just 3 points off 2nd but hopefully we can find another run to cement our place up there.

I chose to go full strength against Ural in the cup seen as we were at home and they are rock bottom of the Premier Division. It payed off, we totally outplayed them and now we have earned a place in the 6th round at home against. CSKA Moscow. Which i know will be an interesting tie which I'm hoping Akinfeev does not enjoy again. Enjoy the 7 hour flight Igor, see you in a week.
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The CSKA Moscow keeper felt confident his side could take revenge for their 3-0 drubbing in Vladivostok a few seasons ago.

Season 1 - 25/9/13 - Luch vs CSKA Moscow (6th round Russian Cup Tie)


A packed out Dinamo Stadium prepared to cheer on Luch to another victory over the Russian giants CSKA.

Every since the draw i couldn't wait to put my boys against Premier division leaders CSKA. Our league form has been great which has kept us top from the start of the season and our home form in the Cup had been great as well. If we were drawn away to Moscow i would of doubted our chances but the way we are playing i feel we can beat anyone at home at the minute.



Again, as we did against Ural we put our best squad out. We needed every drop of our top players effort if we were going to win this one. Interestingly Akinfeev had travelled but not started for CSKA, benched instead maybe they thought this would be a walkover for them?



We did it! one of my most nerve wracking games, after going down 1-0 early on i thought we were in for a drubbing by CSKA but we pushed and got the equaliser through an own goal. We had quite a few dangerous attacks near the end but we were set for extra time.

Maybe knowing this would go to pens the CSKA manager put Akinfeev on, maybe thinking we would have no chance against him. He was wrong and it was even sweeter that we put our 6 winnings penalties past Akinfeev on the night.

Definitely my best night so far as Luch manager and it has showed how strong this small squad of players really is. We have now made it into the quarter finals of the Russian Cup.

We have been drawn against Rostov, struggling in the top division and drawn at home once again.
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Akinfeev's nightmare in the east continues

Great start at Vladivostok, the location of the city seems to play a big part so far, let's see how well you can do with them now