Chertanovo Moscow

Arena Chertanovo is in Severnoye Chertanovo, in the south of Moscow.

Chertanovo was founded in 1993, and its history since has run in two very different registers. In 1998 the club lost its professional status altogether and spent years at amateur level before working its way back into the professional pyramid in 2014. The comeback did not stop there: in 2017/18 Chertanovo won the PFL West Zone and earned promotion to the FNL, and by 2019/20 they had climbed to third place, still the highest finish in the club's history. The 2026 season finds them back in the Second League B, the fourth tier, a reminder of how far the ladder has swung in both directions.

What the club is actually known for is its academy. Naming one graduate undersells it, but Vladislav Sarveli makes the clearest case: 41 goals in 145 appearances left him as the leading scorer in Chertanovo's history before he moved on into the RPL. Others followed the same route out — Nail Umyarov captained Russia's under-21 side and went on to play in European competition, while Sergei Pinyaev's rise took him as far as a trial with Manchester United. The badge itself, until it was redesigned in December 2021, carried a pair of horns, a nod to the nickname Devils that still follows the team in blue and white.

The one time Chertanovo reached a national final, the 2017 FNL Cup, they ran into Fakel Voronezh and lost 0-1, as close as this academy side has come to matching its production line with a trophy on the biggest stage it has played on.