Russia's ten-goal thrillers

A record has already been set in Russia, with the Premier-Liga season less than one matchday old. With a game still to play, 30 goals have been registered in the top division – already the highest-scoring start to a Russian campaign.

Ten of those strikes came in FC Dinamo Moskva's 7-3 home win against FC Rostov on Sunday, a match Rostov defender Vitali Dyakov is understandably keen to put behind him. "It is really hurtful, painful and shocking," he said. "It is all our fault. I would like to believe it will only bring us together."

Such high-scoring games have been rare in what is traditionally a low-scoring league, but as UEFA.com discovers, ten-goal thrillers are not entirely impossible in Russia.

06/08/1992: FC Asmaral Moskva 8-3 FC Zenit
In the 19th round of the first Russian season following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Zenit were not the force they are now – whereas Asmaral, coached by Konstantin Beskov and bankrolled by a wealthy Iraqi businessman, were somewhere near their peak. The match at the Lokomotiv Stadium remains the highest-scoring fixture in the post-Soviet Russian top flight. Asmaral came seventh that campaign but were dissolved due to financial problems a few years later.

17/07/1993: FC Uralmash Ekaterinburg 2-8 FC Spartak Moskva
A crowd of over 20,000 gathered in Ekaterinburg to watch the home side come unstuck against the 'People's Club'. Nikolai Pisarev and Valeri Karpin both hit hat-tricks for Spartak, with strikes from Viktor Onopko and Vladimir Beschastnykh completing the rout.

02/10/1999: FC Zhemchuzhina Sochi 3-7 FC Spartak Moskva
A long journey south produced another wondrous result for Spartak in what proved to be their hosts' last term among the elite. Brazilian forward Robson – rated one of the finest foreign players to grace the league in the 1990s – netted a treble, with Spartak favourites Aleksandr Shirko, Egor Titov and Andrei Tikhonov also on target as they forged towards the title.

08/08/2007: FC Zenit 9-3 FC Dinamo Moskva
The highest-scoring Russian game of modern times came in the sixth round of the 2007/08 Russian Cup, with all the goals bar two coming in the second half at the Stadion Petrovski. Anatoliy Tymoshchuk and Konstantin Zyryanov both claimed hat-tricks – though Zenit would lose to FC Tom Tomsk in the next round.

04/06/1940: FC Dinamo Moskva 8-5 FC Dynamo Kyiv
For the sake of historical record, the highest-scoring match in the history of the Soviet Top League was this notable spree for Dinamo Moskva, played in front of 60,000 spectators. Far from being satisfied with the outcome, Dinamo coach Boris Arkadiev reportedly tore into his team – especially the goalkeeper and defenders – at full time claiming: "That was not football but a game of draughts."