The next Russian football championship started on July 20, 2012 with a match between the debutant of the Premier League Mordovia and Moscow Lokomotiv. For the first time, the tournament is held according to the autumn-spring formula and will end in May 2013.
The beginning of the championship can be considered a series of high-profile transitions that took place in the offseason. Alexander Samedov moved from Dynamo to Lokomotiv. Croatian defender Vedran Corluka moved here from Tottenham. Cameroonian star Samuel Eto'o in Anji's line of attack will now be paired with Ivorian Lasina Traore, who joined Guus Hiddink's team from Kuban. Two outstanding foreign coaches also appeared in the Premier League: Unai Emery at Spartak and Slaven Bilic at Lokomotiv.
Only two teams that took the first two lines at the end of the last season, Zenit and Spartak, passed the three starting rounds without losses. At the same time, the red and whites, having defeated Dynamo in the third round with a score of 4: 0, provoked the first coaching resignation - Sergei Silkin left the post of the head coach of the blue and white.
Dynamo is the main disappointment at the start of the current championship. Showing the most spectacular game in the course of last season, the team after the first three rounds not only had zero points in the graph, but also failed to score a single goal. Sergei Silkin's assistant Dmitry Khokhlov has been appointed acting head coach.
CSKA started unsuccessfully. Having won the first match against Rostov, the army team lost in the next two matches to Amkar and Zenit with the same score 1: 3. Moreover, in the match with the Permians they lost for the near future due to the deletions of two key players - Sergei Ignashevich and Alan Dzagoev. 14th place after three rounds is far from what the team expected before the start of the season.
In the third round, victories came to Alania and Mordovia - the teams that moved into the elite of Russian football at the end of last season. These victories turned out to be loud. The North Ossetian club defeated their neighbor and principal rival, Terek Grozny, with a score of 5: 0. Also, a major victory over Rostov - 3: 0 - brought Mordovia the first points in the history of the team in the top division of Russian football.
