Volna Nizhegorodskaya

Volna are back in the Second League Division B this season, and this time the return trip did not require building anything from scratch: in 2024 the club bought its licence outright from FC Elektron of Velikiy Novgorod rather than earn one on the pitch. Seventh followed in 2025. None of it has translated into cup form, though — quite the opposite. In the Regions Path of the Russian Cup this season Volna have gone further than the league table would suggest: before Tula's Arsenal ended the run in the last 32.

The club exists because a local businessman, Alexey Kozyrev, decided Kovernino needed a team in 2016, and for four years it stayed exactly that: runners-up in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast championship in 2018, third in the MFS Privolzhye third-tier zone the following year. Professional status came in the summer of 2020, finishing tenth in Group 4 of the old Second Division. Volna spent two seasons back among the amateurs before the Elektron purchase restored them to the professional pyramid.

Gocha Gogrichiani has been the season's reference point up front, twelve goals so far, with Mikhail Zabotkin and Kirill Bogdanets among those to have found the net in the cup run.