STORE 
MY BEACH SOCCER 
The Superleague came to a close at the weekend as Kristall proved the strongest.
The 12th season of the Russian beach soccer championship culminated in St. Petersburg on Saturday as BSC Kristall secured the title following two confident victories against Zolotoy in the final series.
The Russian Superleague kicked off on June 15 and was attended by eight teams from five cities, with the first part of the tournament seeing teams play each other in a round robin format across three stages in Samara, Saratov and Moscow.
The top four teams then progressed through to the Superfinal in St. Petersburg – the experienced Moscow clubs, Lokomotiv and Spartak, as well as reigning champions Kristall and debutants Zolotoy.
The semi-finals saw some top-drawer beach soccer, as Zolotoy picked up two wins against Spartak while Kristall proved too strong for Lokomotiv in their respective best-of-three showdowns.
In the final, Zolotoy were without the inspirational Rodrigo, and were unable to resist a powerful Kristall side.
The reigning champions won two games in a row – 5-3 and 3-1 – with the likes of Krash, Datinha and Bruno Xavier all weighing in with important contributions.
Thus, Kristall claimed gold again and joined Lokomotiv on three Russian titles – the men from Moscow forced to settle for third after beating city rivals Spartak in their play-off.
Alexey Makarov scored a hat-trick in their 6-3 win as Lokomotiv finished third for the second year running.
