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ZICO'S DEBUT IN LUZHNIKI
CSKA secured a place in the UEFA Cup Round of 16 yesterday winning
Aston Villa 2-0 in Moscow.
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Yuri Zhirkov Photo SPORT EXPRESS
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At last the first victory of CSKA reigned by Zico came about,
it was not an easy but earned and absolutely deserved victory.
So the Russian club goes further to meet Ukrainian Shakhtar in the next
round and the currently fourth best English club that wedged into the
Big 4 tumbles out of the competition.
CSKA vs. Aston Villa - 2:0 (0:0)
We cannot deny that the English team that arrived not with their best
squad leaving eight leading first-team players behind, was strong enough
to compete with the vice-champions of Russia. We cannot say that the reserves
of Aston Villa side are as good as its main lineup.
There is another question why should Aston Villa waste some much power
on European Cups, playing eleven matches starting from Intertoto Cup and
then doubt whether they are able to compete on two fronts. Though that
is the right of the club to decide the priorities.
And eventually this young squad of the guests managed to hold the Army-men
back for the two-thirds of the match when the Russian national team midfielder
Yuri Zhirkov scored a wonderfully worked free kick.
With the result of the first leg 1-1 it was hard for Aston Villa to score
a ball to make it for the overtime. But I was impossible to stop the Russian
machine that kept attacking the goal of Bradley Guzan. CSKA had a lot
of chances to make their lead even bigger but they forgave blunders of
the English defencemen.
Only at the very end of the match in the added time Vagner Love rifled
in the second goal and his tenth in the campaign after Milos Krasic's
pass.
CSKA became the first Russian club that managed to outplay a representative
of the English Premier League on home turf.
"I think it was not the least reason why so many supporters came
at Luzhniki is that we showed a good game in Birmingham," said the
CSKA head coach Zico.
"But today's viewer rating surprised and gladdened me a lot. But
I think that this 30,000 is a king of a starting point [30,000 supporters
visited the yesterday's match]. I hope that more and more people would
come to see our games every time."
"But to achieve this CSKA should show a nice offensive football as
for example in the first home match of the season."
"I liked the game. We had so many scoring chances! And we managed
to embody all of them I don't dare to think what a score of the match
could have been."
"Let's avoid discussion that Aston Villa had many key players sidelined.
In fact in the first match they had their best lineup but still we managed
to achieve the necessary result."
Sport
Express Daily, 27 Feb 2009
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