Rubin Kazan duo delighted with Barcelona draw
Rubin Kazan players Christian Noboa and Vitali Kaleshin have spoken of their delight after the Russian Premier League giants picked up a point against La Liga giants Barcelona in the sides’ UEFA Champions League group stage clash.
The teams met in Kazan on Wednesday night and Rubin were able to shock the Spanish champions when they took the lead through a penalty kick by midfielder Noboa after 30 minutes. Despite Barca pushing forward for an equaliser, they were only able to find
one when David Villa netted from the spot.
The result follows on from Rubin’s pair of victories over Barca at the same stage of the competition last season, and the Russian side were delighted to continue their strong track record against one of the biggest names in world football.
Result 'not down to luck'
Captain Noboa said how proud he was of his team-mates and added that the result was due to hard work rather than any visit by Lady Luck.
He told UEFA’s official website that: “Luck didn't play a part in achieving this result. People have asked me about this and said the first time was lucky, the second time maybe you were lucky as well, but three times — I don't think so. We trained very
hard for this game, our tactics were spot on, and we've shown to the world we can take points off Barcelona."
Defender Kaleshin, who was fouled for the penalty by Barca right-back Daniel Alves, added that while the Russians adopted a conservative approach to the match, almost every team had to adopt such tactics when faced with the attacking threat that David Villa,
Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta provide.
He said that: "We had to defend because it's impossible to play an open, attacking style against a team like Barcelona. We are not the only team who play this way against Barcelona. We just tried to play as compactly as possible, achieved this and managed
to get a good result."
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