Phenomenal stability, new heroes and "Club 50": the main events of the year at Dynamo

As before the 2023 season, before the start of the new, already the second in the elite of Russian women's football, there were noticeable changes in the team. Yes, of course, not as drastic as in the winter of 2023, but still largely determined the face of the team that played in the 2024 Super League.

Two blue-and-white leaders left the team in the 2023 season: defender and captain Karina Baklanova and midfielder Marina Fedorova. Both players moved to Spartak Moscow, which made its debut at the highest level this season. In addition to them, several Dynamo players went on loan at once: midfielders Liana Kotelnikova, Ksenia Kuzishchina and Anastasia Pervushina – to the Perm Zvezda-2005, and defender Alexandra Nesterovich – to the Belarusian Vitebsk.

New faces appeared in the team already in January, before the start of the first pre-season training camp. They were the experienced and titled Yulia Bessolova (Chertanovo), Maria Galai and Elina Samoilova (both from Lokomotiv). For three of them – 5 championship titles, 5 Cups and 4 Super Cups of Russia. A little later, another experienced football player, Ksenia Kubichnaya from Dynamo Minsk, joined the blue and white team and strengthened the defensive line of the team: champion, winner of the Cup and 2 Super Cups of Belarus, participant of the Champions League playoffs.

Immediately after joining Dynamo, Bessolova received the captain's armband and, like the rest of the newcomers, became an indispensable figure in the updated team. In total, four players have 85 matches, 12 goals and 6 assists this season.

Very young football players also joined the team, on whose talent the coaching staff of the blue and white has high hopes: 18-year-old Tanya Malesia, at her age the defender of the national team of Montenegro, and 21-year-old Lamunat Mustafaeva, a pupil of Dagestan football and the leader of the Donetsk Football Club, who fought for the championship in the 2023 season. The first league. Both this season played for two Dynamo Housing and Communal Services teams at once: the main and youth, and Lamunat managed to distinguish herself for both (she scored a goal each in the Winline Cup of Russia and the Youth League).

In the offseason, the team led by Sergey Lavrentiev held two training camps in Turkey, played a series of friendly matches (including with Super League and even Champions League clubs), and just before the start of the new season met with fans. The meeting was held at Dynamo's BetBoom House on Red Square and was the first event of this format in the club's history. In addition to the direct communication of the blue and white fans with the club's management, players and coaching staff, the newcomers of the team were presented at the meeting, as well as the new Dynamo uniform for the 2024 season was presented.

On this positive wave, the team started its second season at the highest level. And I must say, his start exceeded the wildest expectations and forecasts. Starting with a difficult away victory over Krasnodar (2:0), the blue and white eventually gave out the longest winless streak in their history. It lasted more than two months and amounted to 8 matches – 7 wins and one draw, 4 games without conceded goals, the goal difference is 16-5.

During this series, Dynamo played, perhaps, its best match of the past season – on March 16 in Novogorsk, the blue and white defeated Lokomotiv Moscow (3:0 – goals were scored by Fauzia Nazhemba, Kaylan Williams and Kristina Komissarova). And in this series there were away wins in Rostov-on-Don, Krasnoyarsk and Ryazan. In general, the beginning turned out to be promising. The team was in the lead of the championship and definitely claimed the first Super League medals in its history.

But already the first defeat of the season (0:1 from CSKA at home) marked the beginning of another series – but with a minus sign. From May 24 to August 17, the blue and white played 10 matches, of which only three won, and all the others lost. In addition to CSKA, Dynamo also lost to Spartak, Zenit twice and Lokomotiv twice, including in the 1/4 finals of the Winline Cup of Russia, where they finished their performances in this tournament, surpassing their previous achievement – 1/8 finals in the 2023 season. The summer part of the season was unfortunate for our team, to put it mildly.

Autumn also started hard for the blue and white team: after a break in official games of almost a month (the vicissitudes of the calendar and the rules of the Super League), Dynamo were able to take away from Samara only a draw with Wings of the Soviets (1:1), one of the championship outsiders. Then, however, Sergey Lavrentiev's team gave out an excellent series of three victories in a row and only one missed ball (Yenisei, Chertanovo, Ryazan-Airborne were beaten). The prospect of competing for medals again appeared on the horizon, this time only bronze, as the favorites of the season, CSKA and Zenit, went too far away from everyone.

But this hope was quickly extinguished. After a three-match winning streak, Dynamo unexpectedly lost on the road in Perm to Zvezda 2005, and then to CSKA and Spartak. A relaxed game and an effective victory (4:2) in Kazan over Rubin were able to sweeten the bitterness of failure at the finish line of the season.

The result of the season: 5th place in the Super League standings and the quarterfinals in the Winline Cup of Russia. And if the team performed a little better in the cup tournament than last year (then they stopped at 1/8), then Dynamo finished the season in fifth place in the championship again.

However, there is a nuance here. If last season the blue and white, in addition to the Zenit, CSKA and Lokomotiv supergrands, missed the Perm Zvezda-2005, then this season it was Spartak Moscow, the daring debutant of the Super League and the eternal rival of the Dynamo club.

We asked ourselves this very question when we summed up the season last year. Unfortunately, a year later the issue has not lost its relevance at all. The result of the meetings of Dynamo with the teams of the "big three", which it is time, perhaps, to expand to the top 4, is still deplorable:

– Zenit: 2 matches – 2 defeats (0:2, 2:5 – Super League)

– CSKA: 2 matches – 2 defeats (0:1, 1:2 – Super League)

– Lokomotiv: 3 matches – 2 defeats, 1 victory (3:0, 1:3 – Super League; 1:2 – 1/4 Winline of the Cup of Russia)

– Spartak: 2 matches – 2 defeats (0:1, 2:4 – Super League)

Total: 9 matches – 8 defeats, 1 win, 10-20 goal difference.

Let's remind, last year everything was even sadder: 10 defeats in 10 matches, 5 of them were devastating, a catastrophic goal difference of 3-26. Yes, this year the first victory over the supergrand club has finally been achieved, and a big one at once. Yes, there were practically no defeats (only one from the future champion of Zenit). But the feeling that the matter in this direction has somehow moved off the ground has not arisen. Moreover, offensive losses to Spartak were added to all the troubles – whatever one may say, but the debutant of the Super League, which Dynamo was last season.

However, in this sense, the red-whites are not far from their principal rivals. In the 2024 season, the Spartak team played 7 matches against the "big three" and did not win a single one: 5 defeats from CSKA and Zenit, 2 zero draws with Lokomotiv. But, as they say, the winners are not judged – the winning of bronze medals, of course, blocked all the failures of the red and white in the games with the grandees.

But Dynamo, in order to still qualify for Super League medals, it is necessary to somehow break the unpleasant tradition of losing to the favorites of the season.

Undoubtedly, one of the determining factors of why Dynamo lost a lot of points this season, in addition to the game reasons and the level of opponents, was the incredible number of injuries that have plagued Dynamo football players throughout the year. And they are still being persecuted.

The main thing is that during the season the team lost one key player in each line, namely:

– in the center of defense – the newcomer of the team and the main central defender Ksenia Kubichnaya managed to play 8 matches, dropped out before the end of the season at the end of May

– in midfield – Irina Dricheva: the team's motor in the middle line played only 4 matches, dropped out before the end of the season at the end of April

– in attack – Fauzia Nazhemba: one of Dynamo's two top scorers in the 2023 season (11 goals, 7 assists), she played 11 matches this year (2 goals, 1 assist), first missed two months from April to June, and in early August she finally dropped out before the end of the season

This is about unconditional and long-term losses. There were, of course, losses and not so dramatic and long, but in any case they affected the readiness of the team and the final result. For example, another central defender Jose-Diana Pamen Tchato, who was injured last season, was able to recover and appear on the field only in mid-June of this year.

In general, the situation in the center of the Dynamo defense has become one of the most painful this season: due to catastrophic personnel problems in this zone during the championship, Yulia Bessolova, who usually acts in the center of midfield, and even Kaylan Williams, a profile forward, like Najamba, the top scorer of Dynamo in 2023, managed to play there.!

The last time the American played as a central defender, she was still part of Lokomotiv Moscow. This change of positions (from a center forward to a central defender and back during one match), by the way, did not prevent her from becoming the blue and white's top scorer again in the 2024 season. Now single–handedly - 9 goals in 25 matches!

Another key defender of the blue and white, Maria Digurova, missed several segments during the season due to injuries and even illness. Especially it was not enough at the final stage of the championship – an experienced football player missed the matches with Zvezda 2005, CSKA and Spartak, in which the fate of bronze medals was decided and which the blue and white, unfortunately, lost.

Well, the final touch in the story of the Dynamo team's losses during this amazing season was the main goalkeepers of Dynamo, Diana Ponomareva and Arina Taranchenko, who simultaneously dropped out due to illness. For the final matches of the year with Spartak and Rubin, Anastasia Shervyanina took the place in the goal, for whom these games were the first for the main team, and 18-year-old Maria Leontieva, who has been playing for the blue and white youth team for the last two seasons, entered the application as a reserve goalkeeper.

This season, another club has appeared in the Dynamo women's football club – players who have played 50 matches for the main blue and white team in official tournaments at the highest level. First of all, this is the Super League and the Winline Cup of Russia, but since the history of the official matches of the Housing and Communal Complex "Dynamo" is counting down from the 2022 season, when the team played only in the Youth League, then the counting of the games of the players is also conducted taking into account this season.

In the 2024 season, the first players to reach this mark were 6 football players – Galina Geybieva, Camilla Abashilova, Kristina Komissarova, Arina Taranchenko, Jose-Diana Pamen Tchato and Kaylan Williams.

Irina Dricheva stopped a step away from the anniversary match, she was prevented by an injury that knocked her out until the end of the season. The closest contenders to get into the club next season are Elena Bojic, Tiyana Matic, Elena Shesterneva (47 matches each) and Maria Digurova (46).

Well, the head coach of the Dynamo Football club, Sergey Lavrentiev, can achieve an incredible figure in the new season – 100 official matches at the head of the club!

Another unconditional achievement of our club this season is the representation of Dynamo players in the national teams. A total of 14 Dynamo football players were called up to their national teams during this season:

– to the Russian national team: Kristina Komissarova, Diana Ponomareva, Elena Shesterneva, as well as Liana Kotelnikova, who spent this season on loan at Zvezda-2005

In addition to the players, the coaching staff of the national team, under the leadership of Yuri Krasnozhan, also includes representatives of the coaching staff of the Housing and Communal Complex "Dynamo" – a coach for working with goalkeepersVitaly Shadrin and rehabilitation coach Anna Stukalova.

– to the youth national team of Russia U-19: Arina Taranchenko, Anastasia Gnennaya, Valeria Azeeva, Irina Dricheva, Daniella Petrova, Ekaterina Sergeeva

– in the national team of Montenegro: Helena Bojic, Tanja Malesia

– to the national team of Belarus: Ksenia Kubichnaya

– to the youth national team of Belarus U-19: Polina Golubeva

The most exciting was the story of Helena Bojic in the national team of Montenegro. Montenegrins fought to the last for entry to the European Championship, which will be held next year in Switzerland, and the Dynamo central defender was the mainstay of the defense of her national team.

Having lost the lead in the qualifying group to Greece, the Montenegrin team got into the qualifying round, but lost there after two matches of the Finnish national team and could not win a ticket to Euro 2025.

The Dynamo youth team, led by head coach Mikhail Kobyakov, also had its difficult season. To begin with, the Dynamo youth team has changed even more this year than the main team.

So, in the offseason, striker Alana Chochieva announced her retirement – the team's top scorer in the Youth League in the 2023 season (9 goals). During the season, Valentina Senoyedova, the main defender of the blue and white, also finished her career (31 matches, 27 in the starting lineup, 1 goal and 1 assist).

A whole group of football players who played for Dynamo U-21 last season went on loan: Alexandra Nesterovich (Vitebsk), Anastasia Pervushina and Ksenia Kuzishchina (both "Stars–2005"), Alexandra Shevchenko (Sochi).

For various reasons, Alexandra Galits, Veronika Kudyakova, Anastasia Kuznetsova, Polina Morozkina, Alisa Timofeeva, Ksenia Trofimova, Alina Tumanova, Elizaveta Yudina left the team during the season.

But the replenishment turned out to be more than solid: Arina Volobuyeva, who became the captain of the youth team, champions of the Youth League Anastasia Gnennaya, Taisiya Razvorotneva, Ksenia Skotnikova, talented girls Aigul Bagautdinova, Ulyana Golovanova, Arina Gunina, Daria Guskova, Anastasia Linnikova, Daria Popova, Diana Faskhutdinova.

The main team players Tanya Malesia and Lamunat Mustafayeva regularly helped the youth team. But there was also a movement in the opposite direction – Anastasia Shervyanina, Daniella Petrova, Taisiya Razvorotneva, Ekaterina Sergeeva from the youth team players played for the main team. Perhaps this is the main result of the youth team this season.

As for the performance of Mikhail Kobyakov's wards, they showed the same amazing stability as the main team, and repeated their last year's result – 10th place in the standings. The only difference with the 2023 season is that this season the Dynamo youth team made it to the final round, in which the best teams of the Youth League competed for medals. From the point of view of the result – a small, but a step forward.

This season was marked at Dynamo not only by transfers that took place in the main and youth teams, but also by changes in the club's management and coaching staffs.

In April, Dmitry Borisov, who has been working in the structure of the Housing and Communal Services company Dynamo since 2022, was appointed head of the women's department of the Dynamo Academy. Dmitry Viktorovich is responsible for the strategy and development of the women's direction of our Academy.

In June, the women's football club, in connection with the transition to work at Pari NN FC, left the head of sports projects Alexander Udaltsov, with whose direct participation he appeared, won silver medals of the Youth League in the first season, and in his debut season at the highest level took 5th place in the Super League. In August, Tatyana Chernaya, who previously held senior positions (president, vice President, General Director) at CSKA Housing and Communal Services, became the new head of Dynamo Housing and Communal Services. In the women's "Dynamo" she took the post of director. 

There have been changes in the coaching staff of the mainDynamo team. In October, physical fitness coach Yulia Gordeeva, who has been working in the team since the foundation of the Dynamo Housing and Communal Services, decided to leave the club. In the same month, rehabilitation coach Anna Stukalova started working with the team, who, together with Vitaly Shadrin, is part of the coaching staff of the Russian women's national team as a physical training coach.

Not without changes in the coaching staff of the youth team. He was joined by Lyubov Komarova, who became an assistant to the head coach Mikhail Kobyakov, and Anton Antonov, who took the position of goalkeeper coach for Dynamo youth.

Finally, in July, Ekaterina Selezneva, press attache of Dynamo Housing and Communal Services, who also worked at the club since its foundation, left her post. Sergey Khodyachikh, who previously held a similar position in the youth team of the blue and white, was appointed the new press attache of the Dynamo Housing and Communal Services. The press service of the youth team was headed by Kristina Kokaeva, who previously worked at Lokomotiv Housing and Communal Services.