Maccabi Tel Aviv has almost come to the end of their Leoben, Austria training camp as the club will play FK Anzhi Makhachkala from the Russian Premier League tonight at 19:00.
The side that Maccabi will face is not the same as it was a few years ago when they were a formidable European club. Today, Anzhi is a young club but for the first 20 years of its existence it was one of the top teams in Russia.
Current owner Suleyman Kerimov from Dagestan purchased the club in 2011 and invested huge sums of money into the team, bringing in stars such as Samuel Eto'o, Roberto Carlos, Yuro Zhirkov and world class head coach Guus Hiddink. However, at the start of the 2013/14 campaign, Kerimov decided to drastically reduce the budget and all of the big stars left resulting in the team being relegated at the end of the year. This past season Anzhi was promoted back to the top league by finishing second in the second division.
The team facing Maccabi this evening may not have the stars it once had but Anzhi still has some wonderful players under one of Russia's greatest coaches, veteran Yuri Semin.
Ilya Maksimov is a 28-year old attacking midfielder who will begin his third season at Anzhi and has scored 10 goals over the last two years for the club. Another player to keep an eye on is Ivory Coast striker Yannick Boli who came to Anzhi midway through last season and scored 15 goals in 23 league appearances. 21-year old Amadou Moutari from Nigeria scored 6 goals last year while midfielder Leonardo da Silva will not make life easy for Maccabi Tel Aviv.
After their match with Maccabi, Anzhi will face Copenhagen of Denmark and English side Bolton before opening their Russian Premier League season.
