The two Russian Premier League leaders came to the game with some very good results. Rubin Kazan lost just once during the championship with only 3 goals conceded. While Zenit St Petersburg under the leadership of Spalletti had an incredible series of 19 official games with no losses.
However, the last game with Romanian FC Unirea has proven it’s very hard for the bald Italian’s team to win over the squad, which plays tough, especially when such team acts as defensively as they did in Bucharest.
And Rubin is very good at such game. Their coach, Kurban Berdiev from Turkmenistan, who is considered in Russia to be a tactical genius, proved to be able to create a very disciplined and highly efficient (though not always very effective) team from what he got.
As mentioned, Rubin missed just 3 goals after 14 games, so with 15 goals scored, 8 wins, 5 draws and 1 loss the team from Tatarstan was leading the group of the chasers for the leader. Zenit was well off with 7 points ahead of Rubin leading the championship. The statistics was almost perfect – 36 points and 11 wins, 3 draws and ZERO losses and 23 goals scored against 6 missed; so for Zenit the stakes were high – with the CL tough schedule the team should secure its lead by winning (or at least not allowing to win the direct competitor Rubin – acting Russian PL champion).
The game started at 1600 at Petrovskiy Stadium under comfortable +28 C (it was just the second day of relative coolness in St. Petersburg after the weeks of temperatures over +35 C, when many of St. Pete citizens tried to leave the city for some cooler places like Egypt, Spain or Tunisia. So much about the global warming – St. Petersburg is on about the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska) with supervision of some prominent spectators, including the Governor of St. Petersburg, President of Tatarstan, Russian Football Union head and the two even more important persons – namely Gazprom CEO Alexey Borisovich Miller and Russian national football team coach Dick Nickolaasovich Advocaat.
Right before the game Zenit bought center forwad Alexander Bukharov from Rubin (who couldn’t play with his former team according to the agreement between the clubs) and Alexandar Lukovich from Udinese , and the crowd was eager to see the new Zenit player. Another issue for the Zenit fans was who is going to lead the attack, as Danko Lazovic seemed to recover from his injury and Alexander Kerzhakov, though always protected by Mr. Spalletti from the fans and the press, scored only 3 goals in 15 matches. Certainly not very efficient for a striker.
In turn, Rubin just invited Obafemi Martins from Wolfsburg, and the supporters were willing to see a former Inter player, purchased by Rubin for 8 million euros.
However, the teams started with no serious surprises: Zenit with Malafeev as the goalkeeper, Anyukov, Meira, Lomberts and Gubochan forming the defense line, Shirokov, Denisov and Zyryanov as midfielders, Vladimir Bystrov and Danny as wingers and Kerzhakov as a striker.
Rubin played with Ryzhikov (who is rumored to be transferred to Spartak Moscow), Ansaldi, Navas, Salukvadze and Orehov as defenders, Bystrov, Semak, Kasaev, Muravsky and Noboa as midfielders and Gokdeniz Karadeniz as a striker.
The game, though not being rough, started with surprisingly high collision level.
One of the first collisions not just had the ambulance car to be deployed, but it also destroyed all the tactical preparations of Kurban Berdiyev when in a collision, which seemed to be absolutely harmful, left defender of Rubin Lashi Salukvadze was injured.
Bad luck for the Georgian player who just was invited to play for his national team. He was changed with Balaykin on a 3rd minute and the left wing of Rubin became more threatened with the activity of Danny.
However, the game was slow. On a Zenit side Vladimir Bystrov seemed to be injured as well, though he continued playing until the 33 minute, when changed with Alessandro Rosina.
Rubin played much disciplined, with careful passes and a lot of movement. They possessed the ball better, not coming to any serious attacks on the Zenit goal though.
However, the first bell rang in the mid of the first half, when Kerzhakov shot from the left wing and almost caught Ryzhikov, who had a difficulty to reflect the ball.
Spalletti always defends Alexander Kerzhakov, stating he is very efficient even without scoring. The amount of work Kerzhakov performs is really huge; he seems to be very fit, bringing a lot of pressure on the defenders even without a ball. But with only 3 goals scored, he was started to be considered by the fans as the first candidate to be replaced by some more efficient striker.
Alexander really became more hard-working, more mature and muscular but with it, he lost being as elegant and light-footed as we used to see him in Zenit under the coaching of Peterzhela (or even earlier under Morozov), when, together with Andrey Arshavin, they formed the golden attacking pair of Russian football.
Anyway, the game continued and now Rubin had their chances forcing Malafeev to get more involved. So Zenit had to increase the speed and right before the halftime whistle they scored. Danny made a beautiful passage on the left wing and passed to Zyrianov who shot the goal. Ryzhikov managed to return the ball in the field after the shot, but the attack was finished by Kerzhakov. So the teams went to have the pause under the score of 1-0. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SMFViIkiCg )
After the game continued, Zenit started playing more relaxed, with rather good speed and ball control. Even though Rubin coach left out Martins to strengthen the attacks, Zenit countered with every opportunity, and at the 65th minute Kerzhakov managed to score his second goal – after the long pass of Gubochan from the left wing again, he was first at the ball to score a header. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAik41qi9Nw ).
After the goal, Rubin seemed to accept the failure and in the last 25 minutes Zenit had better chances to score. Before the game finished, Spalletti changed Kerzhakov for Kanunnikov and Danni for Faizulin to reward the heroes of the match with their portion of applause.
After the game Zenit is a clear leader with 39 points, repeating the record figures of Alania from 1995 – 20 games in a row without losing and 39 points after the first half of the championship. Now even if CSKA would win over Spartak Moscow, Zenit would have an advantage of 9 points over the closest follower.
After 15 games played Russian Premier League now has a clear leader.
Article by ILay
Hey ALay,
Got this game recorded on ESPN will watch it later. Glad Zenit won, I’ve always had a soft spot for them!
It’s worth watching savicevic,
under Spalletti Zenit shows somу very solid (maybe not that inspirational as under Peterzhela) performance.
I’m very glad to see Kerzhakov finally scoring.
Well he had to – today his Grandmom became 80
Hope you would like the game.
Thought that the game was very bitty, alot of fouls and players losing possession. Rubin never really looked like scoring and obviously missed a target man up front. Martins will have to change his game somewhat to be a success. Unless the idea is for a change in formation? The Rubin goalkeeper looked very shaky and didn’t look overly convincing for the 2nd goal. Well done Zenit. Lets hope the Moscow derby tomorrow is equally interesting.
Also glad to see Terek back on track
Interesting report, thanks.
When Spalletti was at Roma, he’d more often than not play Totti as a lone striker, who’d frequently drop deep to bring his team-mates into play (ie what Jonathan Wilson likes to call a false nine). Does he deploy Kerzhakov in a similar capacity? If so, that could explain the forward’s low scoring-rate (Totti won the ESM Golden Shoe while playing in Spalletti’s formation, but that was only after he’d had a full season in which to grow accustomed to the role).
Looking forward to more on Russian football!
M.
Well Kerzhakov certainly doesn’t consider himself to be a false nine.
However, former motto of Kerzhakov was ‘BBBB’ – meaning ‘bil, byu i budu bitj’, which can be translated as ‘I strike, I was striking and I shall be striking’ – so everyone from the competition expects him to be finishing all the time.
So usually Kerzhakov attracts at least 2 defenders, while the goal is scored by someone else.
In this particular game it seemed the Rubin coach told his team not to pay that much attention to the Zenit forward – and voila – Kerzh reminded everyone he still IS a striker.
Btw, Spalletti clearly outperformed Berdiyev tactically. Everyone (me inculded) was expecting Zenit to play as fast as possible with short low passes throught the middle.
In that case Rubin could use their pressing defense strategy and catch Zenit on counter-attacks.
Instead, Spalletti seemed to tell his squad to use long passes from the mid-fielders to the final third. Thus, Rubin had to start pressing on Zenit half and gaps between the Rubin mid-fielders and defenders began to appear.
Well what can I say – Spalletti shows outstanding performance.
I was thinking about this whilst watching the game (the commentator compared Denisov to Di Rossi) Zenit play in a 4-2-3-1 formation which is very similar to how Spalletti managed Roma. The side that played Rubin was:
Malafeev; Anyukov, Meira, Lombaerts, Hubocan; Denisov, Zyryanov; Bystrov (Rosina), Shirokov, Danny(Fayzulin); Kerzhakov( Kanunnikov)
I’m not sure that Kerzhakov has the technique to play as a false nine but I suppose when you have a preferred tactic then you will try and shoehorn the best players in each position. Another interesting point is that Zenit have just bought Aleksandr Bukharov – a tall, strong, targetman. I wonder how this will effect Zenit tactically. Will Spalletti play Kerzhakov and Bukharov or will they be rotated? I can’t help thinking that Bukharov is just about as far from Totti as you can get…
Also good to see Zenit improving the side whilst they are on top. Not sure how good goal.com is for transfers but it seems they have bought Alexander Lukovic – http://www.goal.com/en/news/553/russia/2010/07/29/2046890/official-zenit-st-petersburg-sign-udinese-defender and Bruno Alves – http://www.goal.com/en/news/11/transfer-zone/2010/07/29/2046940/zenit-st-petersburg-agree-deal-for-portos-bruno-alves-report
Will they concede again this season!
Bukharov is a good choice.
I’m pretty sure he would appear in the game with Unirea already.
With the teams so rough as most of Romanian teams are and taking into account the ability of Unirea to play defensive 90% of the time and win by just a couple of counter-attacks, a ram type attacker is certainly a must.
Akinfeev’s stock would have plumetted after the derby yesterday. What an error!
Luckily for him, Wagner Love is back
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MBUUkPElss
Hello guys! Savicevic – thanks for the info. Good to know I’m talking to the ‘real deal’ on this site. I’ve only watched the highlights of Spartak vs CSKA and Zenit vs Rubin so far. I have the matches recorded though so I’ll watch them in full soon. TERRIBLE from Berezutsky and Akinfeev. I sometimes feel very sorry for good old Sergei Ignashevitch. He’s the only constantly solid player for CSKA and he seems to be surrounded by comedians (even though Akinfeev is still very good in my eyes). Good to see Wagner Love back although the goal was pretty lucky and I’d hate to see Karpin get the sack because I think he’s done really well and it’s a very promising young team he’s creating e.g. Yakovlev, Ananidze, Makeev, Parshivlyuk etc. I also like the way he trusts the young Russian players and uses less foreign players.
Spaghetti seems to be doing a good job at Zenit although they’re not the best to watch. I’ve always been a fan of Kerzhakov and it’s good to see him scoring important goals again. Good for Russia too! I just hope Zenit don’t slip-up against Unirea. I really want to see them doing well in the Champions League although it seems that Rubin really need a couple of new players.
One question before I go. Why did Bukharov not play for Zenit? Was it part of the deal that he couldn’t play against his former club? Do you think Kerzhakov and Bukharov will play together up front? I think that could be a very good combination actually but Spaghetti seems to be much too defensive to play with two strikers.
Afternoon Kanchelskis,
I’d also like Karpin to stay but he does seem a bit clueless at times. Maybe he could get someone in who has experience and can coach/manage whilst Karpin chooses the players? Clutching at straws…
Is the Rubin goalkeeper rated in Russia? Saw that he was linked to Spartak but can’t see why. Looks incredibly nervous and he reminds me of a second rate Ed de Goey.
Always good to see Kerzakhov scoring. Thought he was a bit hasty to leave Sevilla especially to Dinamo!
Greetings!
Well done with getting this site set-up so quickly Savicevic. I’ll get an article to you a.s.a.p.
I rate Ryzhikov myself. He was really good last season and made a series of good saves in the Champions League at Barca and at home to Inter and Barca. Not surprised to see him linked to Spartak as Dzaneev has had a bit of a mare recently. Terrible defence in front of him though. Spartak look shite at the mo apart from Ananidze. They’ll get tonked in the CL if they’re not careful. What happened to Welliton and Yakovlev?
With regards to Karpin. He’s supposed to have the GREAT Oleg Romantsev doing the job that you suggested i.e. experienced man helping with selection. Romantsev is a strange fellow though and I think apart from a drink problem he’s also bitter about the way he was blamed for poor performances in his last stint as manager and made a scapegoat by the club’s owner.
I like Karpin but he owns a cycling team, loads of properties and seems to be quite a good business man with too much going on off the pitch to concentrate 100% on the job.
Haha, cheers man! Good to get to read some different articles once in a while.
You’re right about the Spartak defence. They look so static and heavy legged. Do they have any transfer budget? I think Wellington is coming back from an injury but yes he wasn’t so sharp. Not sure what has happened with Yakovlev, haven’t seen him in ages.
I can’t see Spartak having a chance against Zenit and I reckon it will be 3-0
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I reckon Zenit might run riot on sunday and that’ll be that for Karpin. The fans’ll be turning their backs again in protest. That is unless they can play a blinder and actually win?