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Russian clubs ready for Europe
Russian football's march on Europe continues this week with three teams
hoping to following CSKA safely through the qualifying play-offs.
First up, in the Champions League, Zenit St Petersburg go to Auxerre on
Wednesday looking to defend the 1-0 lead that Alexander Kerzhakov's 100th
career goal gave them in the first leg last week.
Victory would see Zenit return to the lucrative group stages of Europe's
top competition - but they face a tough task against a French side which
has previously beaten Rostov, CSKA and Torpedo Moscow in earlier European
adventures.
But while Auxerre's head coach Jean Fernandez is quietly confident, Zenit's
own prospects were boosted by the postponement of their weekend match
with CSKA and the return to the squad of pacy midfielder Vladimir Bystrov.
The match in France kicks off at 10:45 pm Moscow time.
Following the army
On Thursday the attention switches to the Europa League, where Lokomotiv
and Sibir still have plenty to do if they are to follow CSKA into the
group stages.
The Army Men completed a routine passage through the play-off round by
scoring two late goals in Cyprus on Tuesday to beat Anorthosis 2-1 on
the night and 6-1 on aggregate.
A low-key encounter sparked into life in the closing stages after Cafu's
neat turn and shot gave the hosts a 77th-minute lead.
That stung CSKA into action, and goals from Seydou Dombia and Mark Gonzalez
gave them their second success over the Cypriots.
Loko look for goals
After coming from behind to draw 1-1 with Lausanne Sports, Lokomotiv need
to finish off their Swiss opponents at Cherkizovsky on Thursday night
(kick-off 8 pm).
And they go into the match as favourites against a team which plays in
the second tier of the Swiss league and qualified for Europe as beaten
cup finalists.
But last week's match showed that in-form Lausanne are capable of causing
an upset, particularly while Loko stutter in their domestic campaign.
Sibir seek a shock
Nobody expected Sibir Novosibirsk to beat Dutch masters PSV Eindhoven
in the first leg last week, but a stoppage time goal from Alexander Degtaryev
gave the Siberian minnows a priceless 1-0 advantage to take to Holland.
The bookmakers don't fancy their prospects in Eindhoven either, and having
lost inspirational captain Alexei Medvedev to Rubin Kazan it's hard to
see where goals will come from.
But if they can repeat their solid defensive showing of last Thursday,
Sibir's unlikely European adventure could continue.
PSV, the 1988 European Champions, will look to their powerful league form
- they've hit 12 goal in the opening three games of the Dutch season -
and Sibir's latent travel-sickness which has left them without an away
win all season to avoid an embarrassing upset.
The
Moscow News, 25/08/2010
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