Marat Sitdikov

Marat Sitdikov is a product of the Rubin Kazan academy, where he came through the ranks before making the step up to the senior squad in 2010. The move never translated into first-team football — he spent his time between the reserves and the youth setup, and left Rubin permanently in the summer of 2015 without an official appearance to his name. A loan spell at Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk in 2012 had already given him a taste of the club that would come to define his career.

After Rubin, Sitdikov's path took him away from Tatarstan, first to Dnepr Smolensk and then, on a free transfer, to Kazakhstan's Aktobe. He returned to Neftekhimik in February 2017, and the comeback could hardly have gone better: on his second debut for the club, away to Zenit-2 in the Russian Football National League, he scored the winning goal in a 1-0 win.

That match marked the start of a long stay. Sitdikov has since become one of the fixtures of the Neftekhimik defence, operating as a left-back and wearing the captain's armband. He has made 243 appearances for the club across all competitions, with three goals to his name. His reliability has stood out even by the standards of a defender: in the 2024/25 season he played every minute of all 34 league matches without being taken off.

He has not collected trophies or individual honours along the way, and his time with the Russia youth side was limited to four caps at Under-18 level. What has defined his career instead is longevity at a single club, where he is regarded by supporters as one of the most popular figures of the Neftekhimik era.