Veles

The autumn of 2019 never had a spring to answer it. Veles led the West zone of the PFL Championship when the season stopped in March 2020; the table was left standing, the results ratified, and a side that had been professional for barely two years went up to the First League. That promotion, on a half-played season, remains the club's cleanest line.

It began three years earlier, in 2016, in the amateur Third Division, where the team finished second in the Moscow zone at the first attempt. Professional status followed in 2017/18. The home ground is Avangard in Domodedovo, a 5,500-seat stadium in the Moscow region rather than the city itself.

The First League years brought eighth place in 2020/21 and a run to the last 32 of the Russian Cup in 2019/20. Then came the fall back and first place in the Gold group of Division A in 2025/26, and a second promotion to the First League, this one earned over a full first stage.

Yevgeny Makeyev, once captain of Spartak, spent a season here.

That belongs to Artur Galoyan, the midfielder who played through the best of it — the eighth-placed season, then thirteen goals to finish the club's leading scorer in 2021/22.