Roman Eremenko in CSKA Continued — cocaine business, a second chance at Spartak The Russian Finn, admittedly, shone — an elegant game was combined with physical strength and excellent football intelligence. No wonder Roman was then considered almost the main star of the entire Russian championship. Everything collapsed at one, completely inopportune moment. It seemed that Eremenko was reaching a new level, he scored a goal against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, and then … News came about a failed doping test. Traces of cocaine were found in the player's sample. The result — two years of a ban on any activity related to football. Probably, it is not necessary to describe all the vicissitudes of this scandalous case, it would be better to give, as always, a capacious quote from the former Minister of Sports of Russia and head of the Russian Football Union (RFU) Vitaly Mutko. She will convey the then prevailing mood in the football environment.
"All this is sad, sad, unexpected. It's a pity on the one hand, on the other hand, what he was disqualified for… All people are adults. Everyone decides how to behave. But this is no longer a question of football, but a social question, a question of education, lifestyle … I don’t know if Eremenko will be able to return to football after two years of disqualification. This is his career, his business, he will make the decision himself. For CSKA, for football — it's a pity, a good player…" — said Mutko.
But Roman was able to return, and he did it again noisily and scandalously. A few months before the expiration of the disqualification, the footballer signed a contract with Spartak, perplexing many involved in CSKA. Especially zealously the player got from the fans that the «red-white» that the «army». But the anger of the fans did not have time to cool down, as the midfielder had already left Spartak, having not found a place for himself in the system of Oleg Kononov. Here it seemed that the career of the once stellar Eremenko began to decline. Many were of the opinion that a long downtime did not pass without a trace, that at such a level it was impossible not only to miss two years, but even two months. But whether the level of the Russian championship has declined so much, or Roman is so unique, but his further transition to Valery Karpin's Rostov convinced all critics of the insignificance of their assumptions. Moreover, the midfielder fit into the Donetsk team's game so coolly that Eremenko's inclusion in the Finnish national team at Euro 2020 was talked about as a fact. But we all remember the pandemic and the postponement of the tournament to 2021, a year when the football player thought much more about his family than about his career. This, by the way, was the reason for his hasty departure from the Karpin team.