Second-placed CSKA Moscow take their unbeaten away record to Dagestan this weekend to face Anzhi Makhachkala in the Russian Premier League.
With three games remaining before the league splits in two for the playoffs, CSKA have 52 points, two behind leaders Zenit and just one ahead of Dinamo Moscow.
CSKA reenter domestic competition off the back of a resounding 3-0 victory in the Champions League against Trabzonspor on Tuesday.
The Anzhi game pits the league’s top striker Seydou Doumbia, who netted twice on Tuesday, against its most famous one, Anzhi’s Cameroonian forward Samuel Eto’o.
Doumbia, reportedly a Chelsea transfer target, has scored six times in his last seven outings, and provided two of the assists in CSKA’s 3-1 home win over Anzhi in June.
Eto’o scored three times in his first four matches for Anzhi but hasn’t found the net in his last two matches, a veritable dry spell for the prolific marksman.
Though CSKA will be the favorites, the outcome is a difficult one to predict with both teams in erratic form, winning only once in their last six league games.
Anzhi, in eighth place in the league on 42 points, are still hunting a permanent replacement for coach Gadzhi Gadzhiyev, who was fired last month. Brazilian veteran Roberto Carlos is assisting caretaker coach Andrei Gordeev in the interim.
A host of names have been linked to the lucrative vacancy, with former Italy coach Marcelo Lippi the latest apparent candidate.
Lippi denied having any intentions to come to Anzhi in comments carried by the Italian daily Tuttomercato on Friday.
Meanwhile, Zenit, who remain in the lead courtesy of their rivals happening to drop points at the same time they have, travel to Rostov, who lie in tenth.
Coach Luciano Spalletti could rest some players involved in the frantic 2-2 draw at Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League on Wednesday, and the Italian himself took Friday off training to attend the birth of his daughter, Matilda.
Zenit are likely to be without top striker Aleksandr Kerzhakov, who continues recovery from an ankle knock, and captain Aleksandr Anyukov, who is sidelined with a shin injury sustained in the 0-0 draw against Dinamo Moscow last week.
Rostov last week lost 2-0 at Krasnodar, ending a six-game unbeaten run, and know they must make more of their chances in front of goal: The last time Rostov put more than one goal away was 15 games ago in a 2-2 draw at Krylya Sovietov Samara.
Dinamo, meanwhile, welcome Rubin Kazan, who lost 1-0 to Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League on Thursday.
Rubin know Dinamo are unbeaten at home this season but can take heart from a 3-0 hammering of Spartak Moscow last week, and their defeat of Dinamo by the same score line in the first game in Kazan.
Elsehwere, Spartak Moscow have the best chance possible of a quick recovery from the drubbing at Rubin, facing the league’s whipping boys Tom Tomsk. The bottom-placed team have lost nine of their last 10 matches, and haven’t managed a single goal in that time.
Spartak are without the suspended Emmanuel Emenike after the Nigerian forward was sent off against Rubin.
Lokomotiv Moscow, five points off the top and the only team in the top five to win last week, travel to Spartak Nalchik, who linger just one point ahead of Tomsk at the bottom.
The railwaymen, as Lokomotiv are known, are undefeated in the 11 games since Portuguese coach Jose Couceiro took over from Yury Krasnozhan in July, and come off a morale-boosting midweek 3-1 victory over AEK Athens in the Europa League.
Nalchik are unbeaten in their last two, albeit against ordinary opposition
In other games, FC Kuban in seventh host Krylya Sovietov Samara; Terek Grozny and Amkar Perm face off in Chechnya; and Volga Nizhny Novgorod welcome Krasnodar.
