Nikita Lobov

Nikita Lobov wore the captain's armband at Zenit-2 before he had played a minute of senior league football above the Second League. He came through the Gazprom Academy in his home city, Saint Petersburg, and by the 2024–2025 season he was a fixture in the reserve side: 39 appearances, two goals, and a Division B, Group 2 title in 2025.

The first team came next. Lobov made his Zenit debut in the Russian Cup in August 2025 — and within weeks he was gone. On 29 August 2025 Rubin paid 40 million roubles for the defender, handing him a four-year contract to 2029. Zenit kept a buyback: 80 million roubles in the winter of 2026, 150 million the following summer.

He debuted in the RPL on 20 September 2025 against Akron and finished the campaign with 12 league appearances and a goal, plus three in the Cup. The run of starts came in clusters rather than in a settled sequence: goalless draws against Arsenal Tula and Nizhny Novgorod in November, then in the spring a stretch that took in wins over Dynamo Moscow and Baltika and a 2:2 with Nizhny Novgorod in May. Against CSKA and Spartak he came off the bench.

The 2026/2027 season has brought five appearances so far, three in the league and two in the Cup.