FC Nizhny Novgorod (ANO Football Club Nizhny Novgorod) is a Russian professional football club from the city of the same name. It was founded in 2015 and will play in the RPL for the first time in the 2021/2022 season.

A football club with this name has existed since 2007 and was even close to entering the top division of the Russian football system, but in 2012 it merged with the Nizhny Novgorod Volga. Several times the fans tried to revive the club at the amateur level, but due to funding problems, these ventures did not last long.

The base for the creation of the new club was FC Olympiets-CYSS, which was created to develop talented football players of the region and prepare them for performances for the main club of the city of Volga. True, the Volga soon ceased to exist, and the Olympian-CYSS was renamed Olympian. In 2018, the regional governor took the club under his tutelage, after which it acquired its current name - FC Nizhny Novgorod.

After it became known about the team's entry into the RPL, the club began preparations for their debut start in the elite. Fortunately, everything is in order with the infrastructure, Nizhny Novgorod has a handsome stadium and a modern training base at its disposal, so all thoughts are about creating a combat-ready team that will avoid the struggle for survival and will be able to gain a foothold in the elite division. It is expected that the club will have a new sponsor, the club's budget will significantly increase, which will make it possible to invite a high-quality coaching staff and a number of experienced performers to solve the assigned tasks. Thus, another strong player may appear on the football map of Russia.

At one time, the city derby of FC Nizhny Novgorod - Volga took place in a fierce struggle, the teams solved their local problems and fought for the favor of the regional authorities in order to achieve an increase in funding, but fate brought these clubs into one, and then divorced. Based on this, the most principled rival of Nizhny Novgorod in the domestic arena is Yaroslavl Shinnik, and their face-to-face fights are often called the Volga derby. True, the same Volga derby can be safely dubbed the confrontation with the Wings of the Soviets or with the same Akron, and there is no historical background in these duels.

The young club cannot boast of trophies yet, and Nizhny Novgorod conquered their main peak in the 2020/2021 season, taking third place in the FNL championship and having won such a coveted ticket to the Premier League.

The newly created club spent three years in the PFL championship, and already in the 2017/2018 season it was at the second level of the country's football system and in its debut season finished in the middle of the standings.

Krylia Sovetov became the rival of Nizhny Novgorod in the playoffs, and already in the first match on the rival's field, the elders in rank made a good start for the final victory, beating the “wings” with a score of 3: 1, so the away victory in Samara with a score of 1: 0 to the representative FNL was not enough to enter the RPL.

Unfortunately, the 2019/2020 championship was unsuccessful, the team lagged far behind the group of leaders and was content with only eleventh place to shoot next season. For the winter break of the FNL championship 2020/2021, Nizhny Novgorod left the leader with firm intentions to defend the first place, but the second half of the season was no longer so confident, letting Krylya Sovetov and Orenburg go ahead. According to the regulations, Volzhan again expected play-offs, but Orenburg did not go through the licensing process to participate in the RPL and it was Nizhny Novgorod that received a direct ticket, which coped with the certification without problems.

The best scorer in the history of FC Nizhny Novgorod is Igor Gorbunov, who played as part of the Olympian, and returned to the club in the summer of 2020. In less than three seasons, he scored 17 goals, although it should be noted that he played as a midfielder.

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