Ilya Lantratov

Ilya Lantratov's route back to Lokomotiv Moscow ran through four different clubs and a cup final he ended up starring in for the losing side. Named Best Player of the 2019/20 Russian Cup final despite Khimki's defeat to Zenit, he had by then already built a reputation away from the academy that first signed him: loan spells at Shinnik Yaroslavl and Baltika Kaliningrad, where he made his FNL debut against Yenisey, gave him the senior football that a place on the books at a big club rarely offers a young goalkeeper.

The Khimki years were the making of him. He won the FNL Cup with the club in 2020 and was named Best Player of the RPL Month in May 2021, form that saw him named among the League's 33 best players in three separate seasons — twice as the second-best goalkeeper and once as the third-best. That run of recognition made his return to Lokomotiv Moscow in December 2022 a homecoming rather than a gamble: he had come through the club's academy, winning the Russian Youth Championship with the under-19 side and lifting the Russian Cup with the first team's squad, though he did not play in that final.

International recognition has followed at a slower pace. He was capped six times for Russia's under-21 side, and stepped up to the senior national team for a friendly against Qatar as a substitute before starting and playing the full ninety minutes in an 11-0 win over Brunei. Domestically, he remains the man Lokomotiv brought back to build around, a goalkeeper whose best moment so far came in a final his own team lost.