About how Zenit taught Rubin’s tactical flexibility a lesson
Kazan players defeated in St. Petersburg 4-2
The defeat of Rubin in the away match against Zenit revealed a serious problem in the squad of the Stones. The Kazan players play the same football with both Kuban and Zenit. Unlike Kurban Berdyev, Valery Chaly could not find any special tactics especially against the favourite. Realnoe Vremya tells how the mentor of Rubin made mistakes, rectified his deficiencies in Petersburg too late and celebrated his 58th birthday this way.
The second central match of the tournament is closely connected with the main spring game where Rostov won against CSKA and headed the ranking. Anyway it is topical for all fans of Rubin Kazan, who closely monitor all peripeties connected with the fate of the ex-mentor of the Kazan players Kurban Berdyev. Comparisons of Rostov with the Tatarstan club are not in the Stones' favour, who have much more financial possibilities but cannot realize them neither in terms of the squad nor coach bench.
Chance for Zenit
Fans of Zenit were also interested in the result of the match of Rostov against CSKA. The victory of Berdyev's wards gives good chances to Zenit to fight for the title. Boas' players just needed to win the match against Rubin.
A great deal of criticism from every possible experts and status fans of the team probably influenced the motivation of Zenit. For instance, Yevgeny Lovchev, a famous commentator, noted in Sovetsky Sport that Zenit was not worthy of the money spent on the team and declared a shame at domestic arena.
Yevgeny Lovchev: 'Now Zenit possibly has the best squad in the history of the club – there are some stars according to European standards: Halk (on photo), Garay, Witsel'. Photo: fc-zenit.ru
'Now Zenit possibly has the best squad in the history of the club – there are some stars according to European standards: Halk, Garay, Witsel; Dzyuba will also be in demand. But the result achieved by Villas-Boas is not worthy of the money spent on the team and out of proportion with the spending on the players. The players are expensive, and the Round of 16 in Champions League is a shame in the championship of the country, if the truth be told, – it is not what the club expected. Boas' era at Zenit ended,' Lovchev stated.
However, Zenit played with Benfica not too bad. Moreover, in my view, the Portuguese were very lucky when there was a random return goal. But it was a right time for Villas-Boas' wards to complain about a capricious fortune. The Zenit players missed many sitters.
Zenit, Kuban – any difference?
Having pronounced a firm intention to return its points in the away match against Zenit, Rubin did not differentiate between Kuban and Zenit at the open training before the departure to the North capital.
'We go for points. We want to give a fight. What is more, Zenit was defeated in the match with Benfica at home in the Champions League playoff. We want to score points against this background,' Denis Tkachuk told a correspondent of Realnoe Vremya.
I think I should explain the absence of the flexibility of the coaching staff of Rubin concerning the formation of the first eleven in the match against Zenit. Valery Chaly presented an absolutely identical squad who won a close victory against Kuban Krasnodar. It should be noted that the mentor of the Kazan players fielded the nominal central defender Emil Bergström on left wing in spite of the fact that Cotunho recovered from his injury and took part in training together with the team during the whole week. Pre-empting, the left wing of the Kazan club reminded a revolving-door place.
A Ukrainian forward Marko Dević, who also recovered from his injury, suffered from the same fate. Igor Portnyagin did not impress in the match with Kuban. Nevertheless, Valery Chaly preferred to field him. And… this forward expectedly disappeared in the field as well as the inside-right Kanunnikov whose position wanted to be replaced by the Turkish leader of the Stones Karadeniz. In general, calling a spade a spade, Maksim stopped his football development after the first successful season with Rinat Bilyaletdinov at best, it is almost a prepayment. In our opinion, there is a tendency to regression.
Villas-Boas made his moves
As for Zenit, as we had forecasted, Anyukov and Kokorin were out of the loop by Villas-Boas who fielded Smolnikov and Shatov. We should remind that the day before the match European press, including a Belgian portal Sportmagazine, informed that a midfielder of Zenit Axel Witsel would leave the club at the end of the season. According to the source, the player wants to gain new experience in a stronger championship than the Russian, and the decision was made when Villas-Boas' team crashed out of the Champions League. This is why the participation of the Belgian midfielder, in fact, disproves this information.
Having handled an emotional onslaught of the Kazan players, the host team scored the first goal in the fifth minute. It was Shatov who had a bad goal attempt but Danny turned it into a pass and shot a two-touch corner kick. In answer to it, Tkachuk turned out in front of Lodygin's goal (the goalkeeper of the host team helped), and Kuzmin's powerful shot rebounded from the Petersburg goalpost. The attacking gust of the Kazan players decreased, and the favourites took the initiative.
Late error correction
But a failure of the renewed defence of Kazan at the beginning of the second half allowed Zenit to be four on to three, and Halk did everything on his own and scored a goal. Here Valery Chaly corrected his second mistake and substituted Marko Dević with Caktaš, who disappeared on the pitch. In the 64th minute, Marko Dević stopped the ball and scored a consolation goal, but could have scored more balls if he had played in the first team from the beginning.
But the consolation goal was not very successful when Danny nutmegged Ryzhikov thanks to Dzyuba's pass. However, the last word in this exciting and rich in goals game belonged to Rubin. Kambolov performed a cross with his head to Portnyagin whose nod transformed it into a goal.
This game demonstrated that Rubin doesn't have a tactical flexibility. The team is trying to play with Kuban at home and with Zenit away equally with the 'No. 1' in terms of the strength. Meanwhile, Valery Chaly's 58th birthday was on the same day. He could not be called an aspiring or prospective coach.
-
-
André Villas-Boas head coach of Zenit FC
-
We had a very good and a very confident match and had about 20 sitters. It is a very important victory in terms of the fight in the tournament because many teams are still fighting for the title. We will have matches with Rostov and CSKA. We continue to fight in the championship and have had a confident victory today. Yes, there were certain situations at the beginning when our mistakes led to one-to-one play with Lodygin, in particular. But nothing special happened except these situations. Although it should be admitted that defence is Zenit's problem in this season. We will find out.
-
-
-
Valery Chaly head coach of Rubin FC
-
The mistakes made today are not to be made a priori. We had many sitters in our goal area, but Zenit had many ball possessions. Today is not our team day. Dević missed a week this is why he did not play in the first eleven.
-