Football Update: FC Zenit St. Petersburg the Russian Club Finding Its Way into the Champions League
The problems with the leagues is that even disinterested fans or even just people even new to the game can pick out the teams, that are going to move to the Champions League. Even if they don’t know which other teams are playing, they can point out a number of clubs which will be there for sure.
The first in the list are the “Big Two” of the Spanish league these include Barcelona and Real Madrid. Then there will be from the Italian side AC Milan, Roma and Inter Milan.
From the German side it’s almost always going to be Bayern Munich and from the English League the teams are un-questionable, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool or the so called “Big Four”. Other teams that will most probably be there are Porto and Lyon, so with these names you pretty much have the list full.
Now only after you are done with all these names that you start suspecting which club is going to make it this year, and amongst these are FC Zenit St. Petersburg. This Russian club beat Manchester United in the 2008 UEFA Super Cup.
The following season after the UEFA win hopes were high for this team, that they would change the list of teams in the champions league for once but sadly with a draw with Juventus and Real Madrid, they did not make it.
Still hopes are very high this year, Russians played the Romanian Club Unirea Uruziceni and easily thwarted them. FC Zenit St. Petersburg has been nothing short of magnificent this season, Luciano Spalleti, the Roman manager has trained his boys well and is set to claim the league title.
In the domestic title, the team was amazing. There were only fifteen games played out of the thirty in the league and they won twelve out of those fifteen matches and were in the lead with nine points to the team in second place. While only surrendering six goals in the entire league they managed to claim the Russian Cup in May.
FC Zenit St. Petersburg has not lost a single match since 12 March and that means a total of nine straight wins in the league games thus far, which is very impressive.
Zenit has signed Bruno Alves, the Portuguese defender for a fee of 22 million Euros and right now it is not known if they would be able to transfer their skills from their local league game play to the Champions one. However, one thing is clear and that is that the team is very strong now and it should not be under-estimated.
Alves was actually wanted by Real Madrid and Chelsea and still Zenit managed to bag him, they also managed to get the Serbian defender Aleksandar Lukovic also Aleksandr Bukharov joined from Rubin. FC Zenit St. Petersburg has spent around forty million Euros in almost one week for these players.
In addition, this money does not include the money spent on the transfers before when Tomas Hubocan got signed for four million, which is the highest fee paid for a Slovakian club. Moreover, five million for Danok Lazovic and Alesksandr Kerzhakov got signed for seven million Euros.
Therefore, to sum it all up FC Zenit St. Petersburg has spent around fifty five million Euros in 2010 for players, who have played in European Competitions and the European Leagues.
Another new face that comes into the club is the Portuguese midfielder Danny, who actually cost the club a fee of thirty million Euros. Nicholas Loamberts the Belgian defender is a very prominent figure at the back of the field, with Vyacheslav Malafeev, the keeper and another defender Aleksandr Anyukov, with midfielders Vladirmir Bystrov, Konstantin Zyryanov and Igor Denisov.
People like to see new faces in the European competitions, as people hate it when it is all the same people playing against each other from the same teams every year. This year fans have their eyes set on the Russians, even though if you look at it with a practical perspective, then Zenit may not be able to win but they will cause some trouble for the regulars of the Champions league, and that may turn out to be very interesting.
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