2008 UEFA Cup Final

Event	2007–08 UEFA Cup
Zenit St. Petersburg Rangers 2 0
Date	14 May 2008
Venue	City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester
Man of the Match	Andrei Arshavin (Zenit)
Referee	Peter Fröjdfeldt (Sweden)
Attendance	43,878
Weather	Sunny 16°C 43% humidity
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The 2008 UEFA Cup Final was the 37th final of the UEFA Cup, UEFA's second tier club football tournament. The match was played at the City of Manchester Stadium, home ground of Manchester City F.C., in Manchester, England,^[1] at 20:45 CEST (19:45 local time) on 14 May 2008.

The match was contested by Zenit St. Petersburg of Russia and Rangers of Scotland. It was billed as a battle of Rangers managerial staff, with ex-boss Dick Advocaat, currently the manager of Zenit, pitted against current boss Walter Smith, who has had two stints as manager of Rangers, with both completing the Scottish domestic treble; Smith in 1993, Advocaat in 1999.

Zenit won the match 2–0, with goals coming from Igor Denisov and Konstantin Zyryanov, to win Zenit their first UEFA Cup title, and make them only the second Russian side to win the competition, after CSKA Moscow in 2004–05.

The logo of the final shows a picture of the City of Manchester Stadium, created by English artist Liam Spencer. It was unveiled at a ceremony in the stadium on December 6.^[2]

[edit] Route to the final

[edit] Knockout stage

Zenit St. Petersburg			Rangers
Villarreal H 1–0	Pogrebnyak 63'	Round of 32 First leg		Panathinaikos H 0–0
Villarreal A 1–2 Zenit St. Petersburg won on away goals	Pogrebnyak 31'	Second leg		Panathinaikos A 1–1 Rangers won on away goals	Novo 81'
Marseille A 1–3	Arshavin 82'	Round of 16 First leg		Werder Bremen H 2–0	Cousin 45' Davis 47'
Marseille H 2–0 Zenit St. Petersburg won on away goals	Pogrebnyak 39', 78'	Second leg		Werder Bremen A 0–1
Bayer Leverkusen A 4–1	Arshavin 20' Pogrebnyak 52' Anyukov 61' Denisov 64'	Quarter-finals First leg		Sporting CP H 0–0
Bayer Leverkusen H 0–1		Second leg		Sporting CP A 2–0	Darcheville 60' Whittaker 90+2'
Bayern Munich A 1–1	Lúcio 60' (o.g.)	Semi-finals First leg		Fiorentina H 0–0
Bayern Munich H 4–0	Pogrebnyak 4', 73' Zyryanov 39' Fayzulin 54'	Second leg		Fiorentina A 0–0 (a.e.t.) Rangers won 4–2 on penalties

[edit] Pre-match

UEFA Cup on display at Manchester Town Hall

Zenit and Michel Platini asked the British government to ease visa procedures for Russian fans, despite Russia having cancelled visas for British fans travelling to 2008 UEFA Champions League Final in Moscow. However, the Director for British Visa Services for the CIS, Mandy Ivemy, said that "for the U.K. government, visas and biometric checks are a vital part of immigration policy, and we are not prepared to waive them".^[3]

Meanwhile, there was a mass flow of Rangers fans into Manchester. Over a hundred thousand supporters 'invaded' the city despite the club's official ticket allocation being just 13,000 and police requests for fans to stay at home. The influx of people resulted in there being no vacant hotel rooms in a twenty mile radius of the city and the total amount of money that was ploughed into the local encomy was estimated to be around £25 million.^[4]

Rangers' home ground, Ibrox, was opened to show a live beamback of the match to approximately 30,000 spectators. Fans queued overnight for a seat in the stadium, and the capacity was reached more than two hours before kick-off.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Match

[edit] Team news

Zenit St. Petersburg were without the competition's top scorer, Pavel Pogrebnyak, who had picked up two bookings in the knockout stages of the tournament and was therefore suspended.^[5] However, they were able to call upon their other star names such as attacking midfielders Andrei Arshavin and Konstantin Zyryanov, as well as holding midfielder Anatoliy Tymoschuk.

Rangers manager Walter Smith started with Jean-Claude Darcheville on his own up-front, with a five man midfield supporting him comprising Steven Davis, Kevin Thomson, Steven Whittaker, Barry Ferguson and Brahim Hemdani. Neil Alexander was making only his 10th start in goal for Rangers, first choice keeper Allan McGregor was injured.

[edit] Match summary

[edit] Match details

14 May 2008 20:45 CEST	Zenit St. Petersburg	2 – 0	Rangers	City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester Attendance: 43,878 Referee: Peter Fröjdfeldt (Sweden)
	Denisov  72' Zyryanov  90+4'	Report

Zenit St. Petersburg

Rangers

ZENIT ST. PETERSBURG: GK 16 Vyacheslav Malafeev 90+2' RB 22 Aleksandr Anyukov CB 4 Ivica Križanac CB 15 Roman Shirokov LB 11 Radek Šírl DM 44 Anatoliy Tymoschuk (c) RM 18 Konstantin Zyryanov LM 27 Igor Denisov 72' RW 20 Viktor Fayzulin 90+3' LW 10 Andrei Arshavin CF 9 Fatih Tekke Substitutes: GK 1 Kamil Čontofalský DF 5 Kim Dong-Jin 90+3' MF 2 Vladislav Radimov MF 25 Fernando Ricksen MF 57 Aleksei Ionov MF 88 Olexandr Gorshkov FW 7 Alejandro Domínguez Manager: Dick Advocaat

RANGERS: GK 13 Neil Alexander RB 21 Kirk Broadfoot 90+4' CB 3 David Weir CB 24 Carlos Cuéllar LB 5 Saša Papac 77' DM 7 Brahim Hemdani 80' RM 28 Steven Whittaker 86' CM 6 Barry Ferguson (c) CM 8 Kevin Thomson LM 35 Steven Davis CF 19 Jean-Claude Darcheville Substitutes: GK 16 Graeme Smith DF 30 Christian Dailly MF 11 Charlie Adam MF 39 Amdy Faye FW 9 Kris Boyd 86' FW 10 Nacho Novo 77' FW 27 Lee McCulloch 80' Manager: Walter Smith

[edit] Match statistics

• UEFA Full Time Report

[edit] Fan violence

Police split Zenit and Rangers fans

The event was marred by fans rioting in Manchester city centre; these riots started after a big screen that was due to show the match had failed. BBC News 24 interrupted normal programming to broadcast the riots live on television^{[citation needed]} and ITN's flagship News at Ten programme gave extensive coverage to the riots.^{[7][8][9][10]}

A Zenit fan was also attacked and stabbed.^[11] Six Rangers fans were arrested on suspicion of grevious bodily harm, but all were released without charges being brought.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

• UEFA Cup 2007-08
• UEFA Intertoto Cup 2007
• 2008 UEFA Champions League Final

[edit] References