Real Madrid v Zenit Saint Petersburg Champions League match
By: j | September 29th, 2008Following their tight 1-0 loss to Juventus, Bernd Schuster’s Real Madrid visit Saint Petersburg in a crucial match for both clubs.
It has been a tough period for Dick Advocaat’s club, a mixture of success winning the UEFA Cup, the Super Cup but also searching to find the same success domestically as last year to no avail. Critical for their immediate goals is advancement in the Champions League but after their opening match loss, they must come out with three points against Real Madrid at home.
Los Blancos are looking well on their way to a superb season and have yet to be beaten after the first match disappointment to Deportivo de La Coruña. Tactically they are best advised to take a more defensive midfield stance and counter-attack on Zenit’s over commitment; a plan that works for others well in the past. However manager Bernd Schuster has given no indication of this and it appears that they will employ a 4-3-3 with the back-line of Sergio Ramos, Fabio Cannavaro, Pepe, Canna and Gabriel Heinze left to deal with Danni, Andrei Arshavin and Pavel Pogrebnyak. The battle to watch, that will likely decide the match will be with Ukraine international Anatoliy Tymoschuk and Real Madrid’s Rubén de la Red and Mahamadou Diarra. Additionally the channel and attacking runs by Konstantin Zyryanov and Viktor Fayzulin should be watched keenly as a confident Zenit pushes forward.
Category: Team News
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Comments
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It was a tough loss. Even harder to swallow than the Juve one as this was at home. What was wrong with the pitch!? It was like Zenit had the 1960s Puma’s which Pele played with while Real Madrid had 21st century boots. This made their complex offensive play difficult but even worse, their normally proactive if sometimes overzealous defense looked a fish out of water playing zonal and was afraid to put a foot in. Zenit suffered badly from the lack of center-back Kriznac, and his replacement Shirokov. Hubocan only has a handful of games in the domestic league against weak opponents, and here he was against Real Madrid and Van der Vaart.
Lets not forget the bias refereeing, but of course that is to be expected against “favored” teams from England, Spain, and Italy, particularly as it is Real Madrid. However one would expect this favoritism towards Real to be at a lower level away from home!!! How bad will it be at the Bernabeu?! It’s never easy to play against a team of superstar divers. You know, the type that grab, kick, and pinch like you’re a suspected drug smuggler at a Mexico City airport… but fall down like they’ve been shot at the slightest of contact, (or non contact). However rarely does the referee bransih cards for such ludicrous offenses. Zenit’s first yellow was to Arshavin when big-boy Van Nissel Roy made Andrei out to be some kind of Terminator. Arshavin was facing the other direction.
Oh well. What am I thinking. It’s the Champions League. It’s always like this.
Posted from
United States
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“tough loss” to say the least. Finishing was a suprising problem as Zenit had many opportunities. I agree with you on missing Ivica Križanac and Roman Shirokov from the lineup and I would have also liked to see Viktor Fayzulin. As far as the pitch, you’re absolutely right and given the style of play you would have assumed they would have taken care of this -
Posted from
Germany -
I love Fayzulin but it’s hard to say I would rather have him than Danny, who is more experienced. I think Zenit would become an even more dynamic team if Dick found a way to use the tremendous talent Tekke. Perhaps Fayzulin should be given half a game, with Zyrianov in the 2nd (or vice versa). But who am I kidding. The key is to settle the defense. As Russia crumbled to Spain in the Semi-Final of the Euros under the burden of worrying about Berezutski in absence of Kolodin, so did Zenit have the worry of conceding a soft counter-attack goal. The problem with players like Tekke, Arshavin, Fayzulin, Dominguez, even Denisov, Danny & Zyrianov, is that they are lazy, and relatively weak on defense. So you can only have a certain amount on the pitch at one time, and there are only 3 subs allowed.
Basically I would like to see Tekke & Pogrebnyak start together, with Danny & Arshavin behind them. With Fayzulin & Denisov (the 2 players who get tired) on and later being subbed for Zyrianov & Dominguez.
The last sub would be for a fresh-legs defender, either Kim Dong Jin or Hubocan coming on..
I’m not sure how it would go but I would like to see it
and I did not like the zone defense one bit. I would play man to man, even tell them to press as they did with Juve, and with Tekke at the front, it as a whole new dimension to Pogrebnyak’s muscle.
Posted from
United States -
Personally (and I’ll state up front my bias here given the final result) I thought the referee had a pretty good game, certainly by Spanish league standards, and even by Champions League standards. The only major mistake I saw was the handball in the Real Madrid area at the beginning of the second half, which could have ended up in a penalty award to Zenit.
The main difference between the two sides was probably the defence – Real’s wasn’t that great either (or you could say Arshavin *burned* Ramos most of the night and Danny gave everyone else headaches), but Zenit don’t have a central defender as good as Pepe or even Cannavaro. Casillas also had a pretty good night, so, all in all, Real were probably fortunate to leave wioth all three points instead of just one which would, on balance, have beeen fairer.
Posted from
Germany -
Anthropology – I agree with you on a number of points and think the problem they are facing is the lack of control in the attack / defending side. I’m a bit surprised to see they haven’t changed the formation to a 3-5-2 that will allow Fatih Tekke, Pavel Pogrebnyak up-front as well as multitude of combinations in the midfield with Anatoliy Tymoschuk, Andrei Arshavin, Danni, Viktor Fayzulin and Konstantin Zyryanov.
Posted from
Germany
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