SKA-Khabarovsk

Football Club SKA-Khabarovsk (Russian: Футбольный клуб СКА-Хабаровск) is a Russian professional association football club based in Khabarovsk which plays in the Russian Football National League. They played in the Russian Premier League for the first time ever in the 2017–18 season.

History

The club has been known under different names:

• DKA (−1953)
• ODO (1954)
• DO (1955–56)
• OSK (1957)
• SKVO (1957–59)
• SKA (1960–99)
• SKA-Energia (1999–2016)
• SKA-Khabarovsk (2016–)

The club has participated in the Soviet championships since 1957. SKA were the quarter-finalists of the Soviet Cup in 1963. They had never played in the Soviet Top League or Russian Premier League, until 2017.

SKA's best result in the Soviet First League was the 6th position in 1980, and their best result in the Russian First Division was 4th position in 2012–13. This entitled them to a promotion/relegation play-off against FC Rostov, 13th place in the RPL, but they lost 3–0 on aggregate and missed their chance to compete in the top flight.

At the end of the 2016–17 season, SKA equalled their record best finish, at the same time qualifying for a promotion play-off against FC Orenburg. On 28 May 2017, SKA were promoted to the Russian Premier League for the first time in their history, after beating FC Orenburg in the promotion play-off. They won 5–3 in a penalty shoot-out, after 0–0 draws in both the home and away legs.

SKA started their first Premier League season with 4 losses. After improving results in the next stretch of games, the losses starting mounting up again. Aleksei Poddubskiy was replaced as manager by Rinat Bilyaletdinov during the winter break, Bilyaletdinov only lasted 4 games before being replaced by Sergei Perednya. On 22 April 2018, SKA lost 0–1 to FC Dynamo Moscow at home (which was their 13th loss in a stretch of 15 winless games) and lost mathematica