Ural U20

FC Ural's first team plays at Yekaterinburg Arena, in front of tens of thousands. Its academy side plays across town, at the Academy's own ground on Festivalnaya Street, a 10,000-seat stadium that shares nothing with the senior arena beyond the badge on the shirts. That gap between the two grounds is roughly the size of the gap between the two teams.

The academy squad, known in Russian football as Ural-M, has no separate legal existence — it is a subdivision of the club, not a club in its own right. It first took the field in the Russian Youth Championship in the 2013/2014 season. Three years later the club set up a second reserve side, Ural-2, to play in the adult Second League; the two never meet, since they compete in different tournaments entirely.

Mikhail Galimov took over as head coach again in June 2024, returning to a post he had already held from 2017 to 2020. The reappointment has not yet translated into results: in 2023 the team finished 19th out of 20 in its division, and it has never won the national youth championship or its cup.

What the academy has produced counts for more than what the team has won. Artyom Mamin trained here from 2006 to 2011, moved on to Spartak's academy, and returned to Ural's first team in 2019 by way of Ural-2. Vitaly Bondarev stayed inside the system the whole way, working through the youth ranks into contention for Russia's youth national side.

Against Krasnodar-M, the strongest regular opponent on the calendar, the record stands at six matches played, six lost, goals 4-21.