The Uzbek Super League season resumes this weekend after three long months away due to COVID-19.
While fans around the country rejoice in the return of competitive football, the situation does bring with it it's inevitable light and shade.
Clubs remain increasingly nervous over the financial insecurity that lies ahead, compelled by the forced break and closed stadiums upon restart. Yet, the other side of the coin promises hope, in the form of new UPFL leadership and a push for investment and exposure from outside.
Going Global?
A youthful and dynamic speaking Diyor Imamkhodjaev became the league's new director little under a month ago and quickly went about winning over the hearts & minds of a new age of football administrators and fans alike.
Honest, transparent interviews and some refreshing ideas offered a view behind a curtain few had ever had the experience of.
His first measure to bring in measures to tackle match-fixing was roundly welcomed, despite being seen as a risky opening hand for a man in charge of a landscape starved of cash flow mid-lockdown.
Plenty of the initiatives post-lockdown have been similarly brave and forward-thinking; one being accessibility; specifically focused on those fans who will be shut out of stadiums for the initial rounds of play.
Universal live coverage of all matches for at least the first two weekends of games is a big step forward for a league that has often failed to grasp league PR in even its simplest of forms.
Such inclusive initiatives will go a long way to bridge a league divide that continued to widen back in March as the season opened.
Pakhtakor: Old Dominance, New Problems
Tashkent giants and last season's quadruple winners, Pakhtakor, had started this term in the same vein as they finished the last, leading the pack after the first three matches with three impressive victories before the suspension.
Their dominance, however, has begun to spill off the pitch; easily commanding the transfer market and what some would have you believe the powers that be.
It's no secret that the schedules have been adapted in the champions' favour of late; Pakhtakor opening three matches, for example, were all fixed at home to aid in their Champions League openers. Yet favourable officiating in some rivals' eyes, has led to accusations that preferential treatment has crossed a line.
Navbahor Namangan has emerged as Pakhtakor's nemesis in this side story. What once was billed as an archetypal capital v provincial city clash, has turned into something quite unsavoury.
The former Russian winger turned head coach Andrei Kanchelskis and his Navbahor side remain the one team to really get under the Tashkent giants' skin, able to reveal a soft spot that only seems to manifest itself on their struggles around the continent.
Pakhtakor's recent history plays out as a symbolic hornet's best; humming in unison when all is running smoothly, but aggressive and disjointed if poked.
Their season opener with Navbahor was unsurprisingly then a typically feisty affair spilling over into a near blood bath; a match of unsavoury tackles from both sides and equal amounts of deceptive behaviour.
Pakhtakor's win from behind that included a brace from born again in form striker Igor Sergeev was a victory at the very essence of the team's form of recent years; ugly, yet effective. But this time there was more to it...
The away side was so incensed by some debatable, yet far from suspect officiating, an official complaint was lodged. While the complaint wasn't exactly upheld, the UFPL sought to redress the harmony within the league, offering solace in the build-up to Navbahor's next match at home, against Tashkent's second club Lokomotiv the week after.
Ironically, Navbahor's victory in that follow up the match, spurred the opposition to again claim that the game was tilted by the powers that be, this time to quell a sizeable backing being established out East against the Tashkent centre. You couldn't make it up.
Uzbek Football Talents Are Ready
Given the tale of a league, fighting suggested corruption and some increasingly over-physical and deceptive football being choreographed, the welcome addition of Imamkhodjaev in UFPL towers offers hope that focus can instead be flung back onto the league's positives.
Fortunately, Uzbek football at the moment is full of them. From multiple successful youth squads, that most recently impressed at the Asian U23s, to hosting the AFC U19s in a few months, there's a buzz being generated from beneath.
That coupled with the ongoing success of the likes of Eldor Shomurodov in Russia, and Jaloliddin Masharipov, currently of Pakhtakor but heavily linked with a move to Turkey, underlines that talent is at significant supply in the country and with it comes healthy demand.
It's not merely a flash in the pan either. A second coming of Uzbek's golden era of a decade ago, it wasn't, there's more to follow on the conveyor belt of talent.
Former big spenders Bunyodkor, now direct their significantly clipped finances into developing talent, under the watchful gaze of national team-come-club coach Vadim Abramov. Nasaf Qarshi, the nation's premier hothouse for young talent also continue to pump out quality and quantity in significant amounts, whilst now finding their feet competitively.
This area of youth talent and how to harness it remains crucial to Uzbek football heading into a new decade.
World Cup qualification remains the unmistakable dream that continues to drive the White Wolves' agenda. However, while so much focus has been on success at that final hurdle, the formative process across several Super League teams within their youth ranks offers possibly the most effective route to success.
The future of versatile playmaker turned flexible support striker Jasurbek Jaloliddinov will likely headline this. The 18-year-old has started this season in a delightful form for Bunyodkor, including a marvellous effort against Mash'al, that has already alerted scouts from Europe to his abilities. His progress this campaign could well be the defining tale of the league's success.
With subplots aplenty, and change in action within the directors' box, transfer market, in the style of play and youth development circles, the footballing landscape and the domestic championship in Uzbekistan looks appetising, to say the least.
While we won't be greeted to a raucous sellout atmosphere in Namangan come this weekend's Super League return, we can at least take sanction that this improving standard of football is being broadcasted around the world for all to a saviour. Tune in and dine!
