I’ve been trying to shy away from this league since a run of negative results. There is indeed very little quality involved and the level of randomness to the competition makes it untrustworthy to invest in the long run. In fact, it’s a typical trait of any tier 2 league regardless of the country in context. England Championship, Bundesliga 2, La Liga 2 and so on are all extremely tricky to trade on pre market. Russia’s 2nd division is no exception.

However, I feel there are too many arguments against Veles and FOR Kuban, that missing out on a bet like this would be a criminal offense.

The key thing to know about Kuban Krasnodar is this: they had one of the best transfer campaigns in summer, bought players quality wise worthy of instent promotion race to Premier League, but put faith in the wrong manager. All the resources went to waste and Kuban could not show even 50% of team’s potential. It went on for far too long, another wrong manager came and failed to give an improvement until finally they struck a deal with a 3 (!) manager - Evdokimov. By Russian 2nd league standards he is similar to Brendan Rogers (Leicester) in the English Premier League - an elite specialist, known for ability to achieve promotion targets. Last season he took Nizhniy Novgorod to the Russian Premier League (left with 5 rounds remaining). After his assigment Kuban’s become a different side. 4 wins in a succession now in the 2nd division and a 3-0 (!!) Cup demolition of Premier League FC Krasnodar - one of the strongest teams in Russia.

Veles is collapsing, in contrast to Kuban’s blooming period. There is something negative going on behind the curtains of the club too as players keep disappearing and staff walking out in the middle of the season. Director of Football Sukhina, for example, left this week after being assigned to the job only in August.

I am waiting for Kuban odds to collapse tomorrow and for them to take points in this trip to Moscow.

自从一系列负面结果以来，我一直试图回避这个联赛。而且竞争的随机性水平使得从长远来看投资是不可信的。事实上，无论在哪个国家/地区，这都是任何二级联赛的典型特征。英格兰冠军联赛、德乙、西乙等在赛前交易中都非常棘手。俄罗斯第二联赛也不例外。

但是，我觉得有太多反对韦莱斯和库班的论据，不能错过本场比赛。

了解库班克拉斯诺达尔的关键在于：他们在夏季进行了最好的转会操作，购买了可以在顶级联赛中效力的出色球员，但他们的错误是主教练。所有的资源都被浪费了，库班甚至无法发挥 50% 的潜力。随后另一个错误的主教练来了，但未能提供改进。最后他们与第三位教练 - Evdokimov 达成协议。按照俄罗斯二级联赛的标准，他与英超联赛中的布伦丹·罗杰斯（莱斯特）相似——一位精英专家，努力实现晋级目标。上赛季他将下诺夫哥罗德带到了俄罗斯超级联赛（还剩5轮）。在他的分配之后，库班变成了另一边。现在在第联赛连续 4 次获胜，并且在杯赛以 3-0 (!!) 的比分淘汰了克拉斯诺达尔 - 俄罗斯最强大的球队之一。

与库班形成鲜明对比的是，韦莱斯正在崩溃。俱乐部幕后也发生了一些负面的事情，因为球员们不断离队，工作人员在赛季中期离开。例如，足球总监 Sukhina 在 8 月份才被分配到这份工作后，本周就离开了。

我认为库班可以在这次莫斯科之行中获得积分。