The key facts
- Volna beat Spartak Kostroma 3:2 on 3 November in Ivanovo
- First Second League club to reach the playoffs since the 2022/23 season
- In the next round their opponent will be an RPL club that finished third in its group
Victory over Spartak and a historic result
FC Volna from the Nizhny Novgorod Region has reached the playoff round of the Regions Path of the Russian Cup, beating Spartak Kostroma 3:2. According to Life.ru, the team became the first Second League side in the last four years to reach this stage of the tournament. The sixth-round match took place on 3 November in Ivanovo.
How the match unfolded
The goals were scored by Mikhail Zabotkin in the 8th minute, Artemy Gunko in the 42nd and Kirill Bogdanets in the 53rd for Volna; Armin Spahic just before the break and Sergey Bugriev in the 65th for the Kostroma side, who were unable to equalise.
What comes next and context
In the next round the Nizhny Novgorod club will face one of the Russian Premier League teams that finishes third in its group of the RPL Path; the opponent will be determined after the group stage. Previously, the last Second League side at this stage was the St Petersburg club Zvezda in the 2022/23 season, which lost to Nizhny Novgorod in the first stage of the Regions Path quarter-finals. For Volna, founded in 2016 in the settlement of Kovernino, the current cup run is already the most successful in its history: along the way the team eliminated Tyumen, Torpedo from Miass, Rotor Volgograd and Dynamo St Petersburg. The same Life.ru article notes that on 12 November the Russia national team will play a friendly match against Uzbekistan in Tashkent — the second meeting between the teams after the goalless draw in November 2022; since then, the Uzbekistan side have qualified for the World Cup for the first time, and in the autumn of 2025 the 2006 World Cup winner Fabio Cannavaro took charge of the team.
