Krasnodar in the past season failed to defend the championship title. Before the start of the new football year, bookmakers were skeptical about the Bulls' prospects, placing them third on the list of favorites. There were several reasons. Among them were the departure of Eduard Spertsyan, the injury of John Cordoba at the World Cup in North America, and the growing ambitions of Spartak Moscow. However, from the preseason camps emerged a new and quite interesting Krasnodar, which in the first month of the season coped with the tasks set. Nikita Krivtsov showed that he could replace Spertsyan, he strengthened in the squad with Juan Boselli, and Ilya Vakhania and Christian joined the squad as if they had been playing for the runner-up of Russia for a long time. As a result, five wins in five league matches and the current first place. The only problem for Krasnodar is Krivtsov's injury, which sidelined him for the rest of the year and will return only in the spring. The match of the last round in Kaspiysk showed that there is no one to replace Nikita at the moment. Another thing is that in the match against Dynamo Makhachkala, John Cordoba appeared on the field for the first time this season. Somehow Krasnodar's attack transformed, beginning to be built around the Colombian forward. The Bulls will play their next league match in the southern derby. Rostov in the summer parted ways with Vakhania and Utkin, who moved to the opponent's camp, as well as Kirill Shchetinin and Mohammad Mohebi. To replace these players Krasnodar signed Olaakunle Olusegun and Daniil Golikov. As free agents, Maksim Mukhin, Yaroslav Mikhaylov, and Igor Nogueira were signed. Recently, media reports leaked information about Rostov's financial problems. Allegedly, it concerns delays in players' salaries and blocked club accounts. Perhaps these events are connected to the southerners' defeat in the previous Russian championship match against Akhmat with a score of 1-4. Overall, Rostov has won only one of five league matches, in which he faced the then-unripe Premier League debutant Rodina. This year Rostov has already played in Krasnodar, performed well, but was defeated 1-2. A similar scenario is expected in the upcoming match.