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PFC Krylia Sovetov Samara is a football club from Russia based in Samara. It returned to the Russian Premier League for the 2021–22 season. In 2004, they finished third in the Russian Premier League.
History
Krylia Sovetov first played in a match for the Cup of the USSR. The match was held on 30 July 1944. In the last 16 round, Krylia Sovetov lost to Lokomotiv Moscow 1–5.
Their first game in the Championship of the USSR took place on 4 June 1945 against Torpedo Gorky. The game ended in a draw 1–1.
On 21 April 1946 the team played its first match in the highest division in the USSR in Alma-Ata, in which they lost 1–2 to Zenit Leningrad.
Krylia Sovetov participated in 48 seasons of the Soviet Top League and 13 in the Russian Premier League, as well as 43 USSR Cups and 13 Russian Cups.
During the second round of the season of 1953 the team bore the name of Zenit.
On 6 July 2002 Krylia Sovetov first played in a European competition, in the second round of the UEFA Intertoto Cup. They won this game with Dinaburg (Daugavpils, Latvia) played in Metallurg Stadium, by a score of 3–0. The goals were scored by Andrei Karyaka, Robertas Poškus and Rogério Gaúcho. In 2005, the team played in UEFA Cup 2005–06 and defeated BATE Borisov in the 2nd qualifying round (2–0, 2–0), but in the 1st round lost to AZ Alkmaar (5–3, 1–3).
In 2009, they were eliminated in the Europa League 3rd qualifying round by St Patrick's Athletic.
2010 licensing controversy
Krylia Sovetov Samara, who were scheduled to pass licensing on 4 February 2010, asked Russian Football Union to postpone their licensing until 15 February of the same year due to financial problems and debts to players. The club was reported to be close to liquidation due to shortage of financing. It later asked to postpone the licensing again to 19 February, but the RFU only postponed it until 17 February. On 17 February it was decided to postpone the licensing until 19 February after all. Krylia Sovetov finally received their license on 19 February after agreeing on new contracts with several companies to sponsor them, some of which might become partial owners of the club.
As the first matchday arrived, Krylia Sovetov were still banned from registering new players because of debts outstanding on old contracts. They could only register 11 players over 21 years old and several more players from the youth team that were registered for them in 2009. The transfer deadline had to be extended from 11 March to 8 April to accommodate Krylia Sovetov in hope they will pay their outstanding debts shortly. With injuries on top of that and only 16 players available for both their main squad and the reserve team, their reserve team had to finish their first game with 9 players on the field as they only had a goalkeeper on the bench after two players were injured, and the main squad had to play against Zenit St. Petersburg with a heavily diluted roster, so even the loss with the score 0–1 was saluted by the Krylia's fans. The transfer ban was confirmed again on 16 March, and was to remain in place until Krylia paid back their debts to their former players Jan Koller and Jiří Jarošík. Krylia lost the second game with the diluted roster 0–3 to Lokomotiv Moscow. The ban was finally lifted on 26 March.
