Zenith for Zenit at Uefa Cup

Manchester, May 15: Rangers’ quest for a European trophy in 36 years ended in a heartbreak as Zenit St. Petersburg claimed Russia’s second Uefa Cup in the space of four years with a 2-0 win in Wednesday’s final.

The match was effectively settled 18 minutes from time, when midfielder Igor Denisov combined smoothly with playmaker Andrei Arshavin before slotting home the recently crowned Russian champions Zenit’s opening goal.

Konstantin Zyrianov added a second in stoppage time to make sure Zenit — giving former Rangers coach Dick Advocaat a famous win — emulated the achievement of 2005 winners CSKA Moscow and condemned the tens of thousands of Rangers supporters who had descended on Manchester to a miserable journey back to Scotland.

Rangers manager Walter Smith claimed that it was a close match. "There wasn’t much in it although Zenit appeared to have more of the possession. Zenit were forced to do without the competition’s joint top scorer, the suspended Pavel Pogrebnyak, drafted experienced Turkey striker Fatih Tekke in to spearhead an attack just ahead of Arshavin. The threat posed by the Russia playmaker was underlined as early as the fourth minute, when Zyrianov sent him darting into the Rangers box.

Neil Alexander looked to have the danger covered but would still have been relieved to see Arshavin’s shot from a tight angle slide into the side netting. Rangers responded with Darcheville bursting through the inside left channel to deliver a low cross that left-back Radek Sirl nicked off the boot of Barry Ferguson as the Rangers captain slid in to meet it on the edge of the six-yard box.

Alexander also had to be alert to keep out a fiercely-struck half-volley from the Zenit right-back, Alexander Anyukov, although the fact that the Russians took half an hour to turn overwhelming domination in terms of possession into their first shot on target was arguably an encouraging sign. (AFP)