Only thanks to the charismatic figure of coach Kurban Berdyev Rubin were able to survive what was an extremely challenging season for them. The catastrophic financial situation of the squad meant that everyone on high wage had to go at some point and despite scoring 4 goals in his first 4 starts striker Jonathas was sold before the end of August. As many as 13 more players were offloaded during the winter and Rubin really cut their wage bill more than half before the season was over.
Despite all these forced changes Berdyev managed the squad very well and he immediately made the Tatars very tough to play against with his famous formation with three centre-backs and two wide wing-backs that regularly drop very deep. Berdyev’s tactics saw Rubin losing only twice in the opening eight rounds, but then came September, a month that saw the Tatars suffering four consecutive 0:1 defeats.
Rubin won only 2 of their last 12 matches before the winter break and after the max exodus of players in January many thought that the team’s top flight status was in serious danger.
However, Berdyev’s genius proved to be working once again and without having to use any serious investments he brought in on loan the likes of Noboa, Popov and Podberezkin for the games in 2018 and all three of them had major impact on the season. Especially Popov proved to be a star up front and since the Bulgarian joined the struggling striker Azmoun also woke up – all of the Iranian’s 4 goals came after the winter break.
Rubin lost only one of their ten games played in 2018, but as they only drew six of these matches they couldn’t realistically hope for more than simply securing their safety with several rounds to spare.
