We have prepared all you need to know about the Russian Super Cup before today’s match between Zenit St. Petersburg and Lokomotiv Moscow.

The Russian Super Cup is played annually between the winners of the Russian Premier Liga and the Russian Cup.

It was first awarded in March 2003, when Lokomotiv Moscow, the 2002 Russian champions, and CSKA Moscow, the 2001/02 Cup winners, played each other. Since then, matches for the Russian Super Cup have been held annually shortly before the start of the new RPL season. Since 2012, after switching to an autumn-spring season, the trophy has been played in the summer. The first winners of the trophy on this schedule were Rubin Kazan.

If one team wins both the league and the Russian Cup, as happened in the 2019/20 season, the RPL runners up will compete in the Super Cup.

Records and achievements

CSKA Moscow are the Super Cup’s most successful side: the Armymen have won the trophy seven times from 11 appearances in the competition. The Moscow club leads the way in both senses, followed by Zenit (four wins out of seven) and Lokomotiv (three wins out of seven).

The trophy is traditionally given to the winner for perpetual storage after three consecutive wins or five in total. In 2013, CSKA kept the trophy for their collection after their fifth victory.

No team has managed to win it three times in a row yet, although the title has been taken twice in a row by CSKA (2006 and 2007, then 2013 and 2014) and Zenit (2015 and 2016).

The Super Cup has been won eight times by the reigning league champions, and four times by the Russian Cup winners. On four occasions the Super Cup has been won by the double winners, and only once have the RPL runners up lifted the trophy - CSKA in 2018.

The record holders among the players are Igor Akinfeev and Sergey Ignashevich, who have both won seven times, but their lists of achievements have discrepancies: the defender won his first title in 2003 for Lokomotiv, while the goalkeeper took all his titles with CSKA, catching up with his former teammate in 2018. The top scorer in Super Cup history is ex-CSKA striker Jo, with three goals in two finals.

Other facts

• Since 2016, the tournament has been officially known in Russian as the Olymp Russian Super Cup. Olymp betting company is the third title sponsor of the Russian Super Cup after Parliament (2004 and 2006) and TransTeleCom (2008-2010).

• Matches have been most often played at neutral stadiums: the first three were held at Lokomotiv Arena, the next five at the Luzhniki, and then outside Moscow the Russian Super Cup has been hosted by Krasnodar, Samara, Rostov, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod.

• A version of the Russian Super Cup existed in Soviet times. Back then the tournament was called the Season Cup, but it was unofficial. The USSR champions and the winners of the USSR Cup competed for the Season Cup, with breaks, from 1977 to 1989: seven editions took place, with Dynamo Kyiv winning the trophy three times, and Shakhtar Donetsk, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, Dynamo Moscow and Zenit Leningrad all winning once.

Photo: Konstantin Rybin/RPL