ZENIT St Petersburg may nominally have had a free week to prepare for this Wednesday's Uefa Cup final against Rangers at the City of Manchester Stadium but manager Dick Advocaat opted to play a warm-up game against AZ Alkmaar on Saturday and the Russians carved out a 2-2 draw.
Zenit needed an 81st-minute penalty from Pavel Pogrebnyak to avoid defeat – ironically the club's joint top scorer who will be suspended for the final. Former Ibrox manager Advocaat kept him on the bench for an hour as he looked at possible repl
acements.
Fatih Tekke started as striker but failed to make an impact. Instead, it was Andrei Arshavin who looks most likely to threaten Rangers. The playmaker started on the left wing but drifted infield and was at the heart of Zenit's attacks, despite playing with his right knee taped.
Zenit came close to taking the lead in the 23rd minute when Boy Waterman pulled off a good save from Igor Denisov and Alejandro Dominguez smashed the rebound against the bar. Despite the pressure from the Russian club, it was the Dutch side that took a 2-0 lead with goals from Graziano Pelle and Hector Moreno. Moreno's goal exposed a Zenit frailty at set pieces when as he climbed above the defence to head home.
On the stroke of half-time, Zenit pulled back a goal thanks to Roman Shirolov. Arshavin had a string of chances after the break but could not convert. That set the stage for Pogrebnyak to calmly slot in his penalty after being brought down by Ryan Donk.
The full article contains 272 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
