Metafraks Gubakha

Metafraks Gubakha is a Uralican football (soccer) club that currently plays in the Bolakliiga, where it finished eleventh - basically right at the middle of the table. The thing that impressed Jarkko Salomäki the most about this particular club was its defence, although he was highly critical of their lack of finish, which in his opinion, "killed them against more talented clubs."

That said, Metafraks had a much humbler start than a first-level Uralican football league, indicated by the relatively small size of its stadium. It used to be the company football club of a Gubakha-founded industrial conglomerate specialising in methanol and methanol-derived chemicals, which wasn't founded until 2000, and never really had much success, being confined to regional leagues within Russia.

Cataclysm devastated both the corporation and the football club, which was almost forced to dissolve due to losing players. A cash injection to the company brought more labour, and with it, more part-time footballers, but the mediocrity continued as Gubakha languished in the lower levels of Permski Kray's football league system.

It was in early 2008 that it finally caught a break, with two particularly talented players, Boris Chubarov and Vyacheslav Lazutin (both defenders) joining the club as part-timers, and the injection of defence coupled with increasing interest from youth players made Metafraks "wipe the floor" with its division.

After making the finals of the Permski Kray Cup in its final edition in the late summer/early fall of 2008 (it lost to Amkar Perm') it was invited to become a full-time professional club within the Uralican League System, whose inaugural season was just wrapping up.

The biggest hurdle to clear for this to happen was the fact that, as a company team, they would always be limited in funds. This hurdle, however, was taken away after Metafraks was bought out by Magyar Independent in early 2009, with Christian Sport and Bolak Corp. offering to sponsor the club and a mid-level Christian Sport board member buying the club. Although some of the factory-worker players ended up moving on to lower-level, part-time clubs, the club's manager since 2008, Mikhail Pertunov, insisted that seven players - Chubarov and Lazutin, plus right back Svyatoslav Antropov, goalkeeper Kirill Fedotov, striker Leonid Karpin, centre back Matvey Tursunov, and defensive midfield Georgi Malenkov - be signed to full-time contracts.

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