Hosting matches of legends has become a good tradition of the RPL. Two years ago, Zenit and Spartak exchanged duels at home, recently the red-and-whites gathered two of their own teams, now the heroes of the past from the two main clubs of his career played in honor of Pavel Sadyrin – CSKA came to St. Petersburg.
Initially, the match was to be held at Petrovsky Stadium, but then it was moved to Smena. “A fantastic venue, with a lot of energy,” said Igor Denisov about the change of venue on Match TV. Besides him, there were enough stars in the line-up:
Zenit’s squad included Roman Berezovsky, Alexander Anyukov, Alexey Igonin, Vladimir Kulik, Igor Smolnikov, Roman Shirokov, Konstantin Zyryanov, Viktor Faizulin, Igor Denisov, Anatoly Timoshchuk (captain), Andrey Arshavin, Vladislav Radimov, Alexander Spivak, Pavel Pogrebnyak , Igor Semshov, Valery Tsvetkov, Konstantin Lobov, Alexander Gorshkov and Maxim Astafiev.
CSKA brought in Vladimir Gabulov, Victor Vasin, Kirill Nababkin, Georgy Shchennikov, Dmitry Kuznetsov (captain), Denis Mashkarin, Yuri Zhirkov, Evgeny Aldonin, Alan Kusov, Zoran Tosic, Alan Dzagoev, Oleg Kornaukhov, Dmitry Korsakov, Dmitry Khomukha, Alexander Grishin, Evgeny Bushmanov, Denis Popov and Alexey Savelyev.
The St. Petersburg coaching staff included Anatoly Davydov, Anatoly Zinchenko and Mikhail Biryukov, and the army team was led by Valery Gazzaev with Alexander Tarkhanov and Oleg Dolmatov. Sergey Semak also visited the stadium. It is a pity that he only did so as a spectator. It would be interesting to see what uniform he would try on.
Before the match, Pogrebnyak gave an in-depth interview to the “Championship”:
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The legends went back two 40-minute periods. At first, Smolnikov tried to confront Gabulov, collided with Shchennikov and asked for a penalty. In vain. In the 10th minute, Semshov was allowed to shoot from a convenient position: his shot was too weak. Dzagoev and Tosic shot over the goal. Still out of old habit, Zhirkov made a beautiful move. “Why doesn’t he play for us? This is a failure in the transfer market,” Arshavin noted ironically about Yuri in military uniform.
The match was played at a slow pace, but this is not surprising: the spectators came to watch the stars of their childhood and youth, and not their brilliant football. Well, or not youth, as can be seen in the following screenshot. However, they quickly waited for it: then the ex-footballers ran away.
Fans at the match between Zenit legends and CSKA
Photo: Transmission frame
At first, Zenit seemed more confident: either Astafiev ran down the left flank and shot at Kulik, forcing Gabulov to react (even if he was offside), or Zyryanov unleashed a beautiful volley that just went wide of the target. But CSKA scored first: Tymoshchuk, after a weak pass from Berezovsky, cut Dzagoev and Tosic fired accurately into the bottom left corner from 11 meters.
Arshavin almost immediately regained his balance from an acute angle; Gabulov was not going to let him pass. It was a hot day, in which the teams seemed to ignore the centre of the field. The army men succeeded again: Shchennikov outpaced Dzagoev, ran away from everyone and rolled under Berezovsky.
Zenit player Andrey Arshavin and Army player Viktor Vasin
Photo by: RIA Novosti
Shirokov turned beautifully into the far corner and missed by a few centimetres. Astafiev jumped under the marquee and shot just over the target. Tsvetkov charged in from distance. Zenit definitely scored at least one goal, it was just bad luck. Until the 45th minute, when Astafiev headed the ball in from a couple of metres, Kulik also provided the assist with his head.
The intrigue did not work yet, because after 13 minutes the two Alans arranged a masterpiece goal: Kusov scratched the ball in a tackle and flew to Dzagoev, who with one move put Berezovsky on the grass, and with the second threw him out with a parachute. Master, what can I say?
In the second half it became clear that the players’ strength was not infinite. Arshavin, in his characteristic style, turned Vasin and aimed for the far corner, but again there was no luck. Then Victor corrected himself and saved Tymoshchuk from a 100% goal by diving under him right in front of the goal. That’s all.
Army player Yuri Zhirkov and Zenit players Andrei Arshavin, Konstantin Zyryanov and Viktor Faizulin
Photo by: RIA Novosti
CSKA was in much better shape and deservedly won. Especially Gabulov, Shchennikov, Nababkin, Zhirkov, Dzagoev and Tosic. By any chance, the main team does not need reinforcements there? There are several candidates.
