RPL players recognized John Cordoba as the best player of the season

Sport-Express journalists conducted an annual survey and found out who became the best player of the Russian Premier League (RPL) in the 2025/2026 season. It is noteworthy that the athletes themselves chose. And many of them gave their vote to the scorer, who really showed an impressive result.

The times are not the most favorable for Russian football right now: there are no European cups and no World Cup due to sanctions. But at the Russian Cup final, there were more than 70,000 fans in the stands. On the field, among others, John Cordoba is the best player of the season according to the results of the Sports Express voting.

"First of all, I want to thank all the players and colleagues who voted for me and consider me the best. And I also want to thank my team and my partners, because it would not have been possible without them. And, of course, Sport-Express, which conducts this voting and makes such things interesting in order to motivate us to fight for such awards," said the Krasnodar football club player.

Cordoba played in Envigado, Chiapas and Dorados, three German clubs, and for the last five years in a city with a strange name for him Krasnodar. Over the years, I've made everyone fall in love with me.

"A powerful striker who scores a lot of goals. It is very difficult for defenders to resist him. Powerful punch, wide back, powerful body. It's not easy for anyone to stop the Colombian, and therefore, among other things, he won the title of not only the best RPL football player according to a survey by the Sport-Express publication, but also became the top scorer of the championship. I scored 17 goals and the closest pursuer was four goals behind," said Konstantin Alekseev, head of the Sports Express football department.

According to the voting results, there is another very significant point: half of the top ten are Russians. But a whole generation of Russian football players is stewing in their own juice. It's not their fault, but they're good. Matvey Kislyak from CSKA, Alexey Batrakov from Lokomotiv, Konstantin Tyukavin from Dynamo are already at the forefront of our league and under the gun of leading clubs from Europe, despite the sanctions.

"There are quite a lot of young players. It feels like a new wave is starting. These players are trained, technical, and psychologically stable. I think that in many ways they will determine the future of Russian football," said former Zenit captain Alexei Igonin.,

Sport-Express has been voting for the best player in our championship for 35 years, and its value lies in the fact that the players themselves vote — 11 people from each team in the league. The recognition of colleagues is expensive in itself, and the league is pushing forward.

"The Russian Championship is quite watchable in terms of spectacle, shows, key matches, tension, in terms of the competitive standings, level, again, we can only judge this when we enter the international arena and can determine how competitive we are to European football," explained the head of the selection service. "Krasnodar" Maxim Buznikin.

"We have a good team and coaching staff — we can fight for the championship"

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On May 27, the Transfermarkt portal summed up the results of the 2025/26 season in the Russian Premier League and identified the best players of the championship, as well as highlighted the most expensive and cheaper players and clubs. So, four Bulls players were included in the starting line-up of the best team: goalkeeper Stanislav Agkatsev, defender Diego Costa, midfielder Eduard Spertsyan and striker John Cordoba.