Star Power: which of the media personalities will play in the Russian Cup

It is not only the teams of the Russian Premier League that are fighting for the Russian Football Cup. The format of the tournament is interesting because it provides an opportunity to attract the attention of viewers to little-known and unusual teams. They enter the fight at the very first stage of the Path of the Regions (1/256 finals). In this round, mainly representatives of the Second League B will come to visit amateur and media teams. We will pay special attention to three teams representing the Media Football League: Broken Boys won the right to play in the Russian Cup as a finalist in the sixth season of the Media League, Amkal won the Media League Cup, and 2Drots was awarded a wild card from the title sponsor of the competition.

Amkal

The Amkal team can already be called an experienced "media fighter" of the Russian Cup. She will take part in the fourth season in a row. And as statistics show, the opponents in the first round have never been an obstacle for the media. In the 2022/23 season, Amkal immediately overcame two stages: in the 1/256 finals, Zorky from Krasnogorsk went through on penalties, in the 1/128 finals they beat Tver with a minimum score of 1:0, but in the 1/64 finals they were stopped by St. Petersburg Zvezda, and then after eleven—meter strikes. Of course, these matches aroused increased spectator interest, from which absolutely everyone benefited.

In the 2023/24 season, Amkal performed slightly worse. This time, their journey ended after the second stage. In the 1/256 finals, the Amkalov team won a strong-willed victory over the Krasnoe Znamya club from Noginsk (3:2), and in the 1/128 finals they lost to Ivanovo Textile Workers in a penalty shootout.

Last season, Amkal made a real breakthrough for media teams, reaching a meeting with Alania in the 1/32 finals. Along the way, the Amkalov team beat Kolomna (8:1), Veles (2:0) and Cosmos (2:1). But Vladikavkaz turned out to be a little stronger (0:1).

It is interesting to see which team Amkal will play in the 2025/26 Russian Cup. This time it will be mostly bloggers, musicians and comedians. The difficult financial situation partially forced the club to return to the true appearance of the Amkal media football club — the new sponsor demanded that the club release real media personalities, not former professional football players, for the match with Kvant.

Perhaps the most "stellar" person in Amcal by the standards of audience size is the famous technoblogger Wylsacom (aka Valentin Petukhov). He is famous for his reviews of gadgets, mainly mobile devices from Apple. At the moment, Valentin has 11.5 million subscribers on the YouTube video platform, and the total number of content views reaches 3.55 billion.

Wylsacom has been interested in football for a long time, and now he is also the president of another media club, Egrisi, the one that is directly associated with the late commentator Vasily Utkin.

Wylsacom announced his participation in the Russian Cup for Amkal on July 28. At the same time, he named a specific position that he would take on the field — goalkeeper.

"I'll probably take half the goal (laughs), so you won't score anything for me," Wylsacom said in a video on the Egrisi Telegram channel.

Other famous personalities announced for Amkal for the Russian Cup include singer The Limba, streamer Paradeevich, who was ranked by Forbes as one of the most successful people under the age of 30, as well as comedian Phil Voronin.

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Broke Boys

The Brooks will play in the Russian Cup for the second time in their history. Last season, the team founded by journalist Dmitry Egorov beat Obninsk Kvant in the first round (4:2 in a penalty shootout), and lost to Dzerzhinsk Khimik in the second round (0:1).

This season, Broken Boys will be led by the most decorated coach in the history of media football, CSKA and Espanyol legend Dmitry Kuznetsov, who previously coached 2Drots.

Among the famous personalities in the squad, it is worth noting two real living legends of Spartak Moscow — defender Evgeny Makeev and striker Pavel Yakovlev. Their experience can help the "brooks" at least pass the "Eagle". And if this happens, then, according to Egorov, the Russian champion of Krasnodar and former striker of Dynamo Moscow, Lokomotiv and the Russian national team Fedor Smolov will join the team. What's wrong with motivation?

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2Drots

"Droty", as well as "Amkal", will play in the Russian Cup for the fourth time in a row. And they also reached the 1/32 finals, however, a season earlier (2023/24), and played there with Khimki, to whom they lost 0.:2. And before that, 2Drots passed Sakhalin, Murom and Kirov Dynamo.

Last season, the team, then coached by Kuznetsov, completed participation in the Russian Cup at the 1/128 finals stage, losing to Spartak Kostroma (0:1). With the same score, but victorious for themselves, 2Drots defeated Strogino before that.

For this season, 2Drots received a wild card from the title sponsor to participate in the national cup. And so, at the level of the Media League, the team has not become a champion since December 2022. And last year I didn't win a single trophy.

After Kuznetsov's departure, Drotov was headed by 44-year-old Dmitry Smirnov, known for his work as an assistant to CSKA legend Vasily Berezutsky at Azerbaijani Sabah. And Smirnov has already stated that he will play attacking football for the team, and as an ideal he called the mix of Liverpool and Barcelona. It sounds ambitious.

As for the squad, there is only one player claiming to be a star player — 38-year-old former defender of Spartak, Krasnodar and the Russian national team Fedor Kudryashov. The same author of the fatal auto–goal in the qualifying match for the 2022 World Cup against the Croatian national team. If it hadn't been for him and all the subsequent unsportsmanlike events in the world, Valery Karpin's team would have won a direct ticket to the Winter World Cup in Qatar. But what happened was what happened…

Now Kudryashov's interim task is to help 2Drots pass Torpedo Vladimir in the first round of the Russian Cup Regions Path.