The world’s weirdest local derby
In Russia’s third division, Sakhalin’s nearest game is 4,000 miles away
When Russia’s lower leagues underwent a hefty restructure this summer, FC Sakhalin definitely got the rough end of the stick.
Founded in 2004, the team are based in the small city of Yuzhno- Sakhalin on Sakhalin island, which is around 500 miles further east than even Vladivostok, and only 25 miles from Japan.
For several years, the isolated club pottered about in a special regional league for teams in Russia’s far east – that was, until they made the daft mistake of securing promotion to the second tier for 2014- 15, which involved playing matches against teams from all over the world’s largest country.
They at least had two relatively local away trips that season – against fellow far eastern castaways in Luch- Energiya Vladivostok and the relative giants of SKA- Energiya Khabarovsk – but were relegated back to the regional third tier immediately, and opted not to apply for promotion when they topped the far east league again in 2018.
Then this summer, things got weird. The authorities slimmed down the third tier, reducing its five regional leagues to four and scrapping the six- team far east league. But if you thought those clubs would simply move into the ‘ still east but not ridiculously far east’ league, you’d be very wrong.
True, a few sides did – including Novosibirsk, whose predecessor club Sibir Novosibirsk still hold the record for the most eastern match in UEFA history. Situated as far east as Nepal, they hosted Dutch giants PSV in the Europa League in 2010, before being dissolved as a club entirely in 2019.
Strangely, fellow Siberian outfits Chita and Zenit Irkutsk are now in the western regional league of Russia’s third tier, travelling as far as St Petersburg.
But even they don’t have to journey like poor old Sakhalin, the solitary far eastern club competing in a regional league largely comprised of teams from Moscow, 4,140 miles away. Their closest game is at Sokol Saratov, a mere 4,054 miles away.
For comparison, that’s further than PSV travelled to reach Novosibirsk ( 3,050 miles), and also further than the longest trip in UEFA club competition history, set in 2015 for Astana vs Benfica ( 3,836 miles).
It’s also worse than the lengthiest jaunts in global top- flight football: the coast- to- coast clash between Pacific FC and HFX Wanderers in the new Canadian Premier League ( 2,781 miles), and Perth Glory vs Wellington Phoenix in the A- League ( 3,268 miles).
To avoid the ludicrous prospect of a nine- hour flight to Moscow every other week, Sakhalin have at least been allowed to play blocks of away matches back to back, before returning east – eight time zones away – for a run of home fixtures.
Having been one of the better teams in the far east regional league, results didn’t start well for Sakhalin this term: they sat bottom after 10 games, probably weary from it all already. Even worse, they lost their ‘ local derby’ 4- 0 at Sokol. It was a long journey home.