2008 UEFA Cup final

2008 UEFA Cup final

Match programme cover
Event	2007–08 UEFA Cup
Zenit Saint Petersburg Rangers 2 0
Date	14 May 2008
Venue	City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester
Man of the Match	Andrey Arshavin (Zenit Saint Petersburg)
Referee	Peter Fröjdfeldt (Sweden)
Attendance	43,878[1]
Weather	Sunny 16 °C (61 °F) 43% humidity[2]
← 2007 2009 →

The 2008 UEFA Cup final was a football match that took place on 14 May 2008 at the City of Manchester Stadium in Manchester, England.^[3] It was the 37th annual final of the UEFA Cup, UEFA's second tier club football tournament.

The match, which was contested by Zenit Saint Petersburg of Russia and Rangers of Scotland, was won 2–0 by Zenit, with goals from Igor Denisov and Konstantin Zyryanov,^[4] to claim their first UEFA Cup title, making them only the second Russian side to win the competition, after CSKA Moscow in 2004–05. Zenit went on to play in the 2008 UEFA Super Cup, which they won after beating 2007–08 UEFA Champions League winners Manchester United 2–1.

The fixture is notable for having the largest travelling support in football history, with close to 200,000 Rangers fans travelling to Manchester for the occasion.^[5][6]

Zenit and Rangers had never previously met in European competition, although Rangers had played Russian opposition on 10 prior occasions, winning seven – including a 3–2 win over Dynamo Moscow in the 1972 European Cup Winners' Cup Final – drawing two and losing one. Zenit had never played against Scottish opposition, although they had played in England three times, winning once against Bradford City in the 2000 UEFA Intertoto Cup and losing to Bolton Wanderers in the 2005–06 UEFA Cup and Everton earlier in 2007–08.

Rangers' European record was significantly better than Zenit's going into this match, having reached the final of the Cup Winners' Cup three times – in 1961, 1967 and 1972, winning the last one. By winning the 1972 Cup Winners' Cup, Rangers also played in the 1972 European Super Cup, losing to Ajax of the Netherlands, although this is not considered official by UEFA.

Rangers went into the final four points behind Glasgow rivals Celtic in the Scottish Premier League, albeit with three games left to play, compared to Celtic's one.^[7] However, they had already won the League Cup against Dundee United two months earlier and were due to play in the Scottish Cup Final against Queen of the South 10 days after the UEFA Cup final. Because of the difference between the Russian and Scottish football calendars at the time – Russia operated a March–November calendar until 2011 – Zenit had only played six games of their 2008 league season by the time of the UEFA Cup final; however, they had finished the previous season in November 2007 as league winners, as well as reaching the quarter-finals of the 2007–08 Russian Cup and beating Lokomotiv Moscow in the Russian Super Cup in March 2008.

The final pitched former Rangers manager Dick Advocaat, then the manager of Zenit, against incumbent Rangers boss Walter Smith, both of whom had completed the Scottish domestic treble; Smith in 1993, Advocaat in 1999.

The City of Manchester Stadium was selected as the venue for the 2008 UEFA Cup final at the October 2006 meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee in Ljubljana, Slovenia.^[8] Other candidates to host the match included the HSH Nordbank Arena in Hamburg, Germany; the Stadionul Național in Bucharest, Romania; the Ramat Gan Stadium in Tel Aviv District, Israel; and the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, which was awarded the 2009 UEFA Cup final.^[9]

The stadium was initially built as the primary venue for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, hosted in Manchester, but the athletics track was removed when Manchester City moved from their old Maine Road stadium in 2003. The conversion increased the capacity of the stadium from 41,000 for the Commonwealth Games to almost 48,000. In 2005, the stadium was selected as one of the venues for UEFA Women's Euro 2005, played in five towns across north-west England. The only previous major European final held in Manchester was the 2003 UEFA Champions League Final at Old Trafford between Juventus and Milan.^[10]

Zenit Saint Petersburg				Rangers
UEFA Cup			Round	Champions League
Opponent	Result	Legs	Qualifying phase	Opponent	Result	Legs
Zlaté Moravce	5–0	2–0 away; 3–0 home	Second qualifying round	Zeta	3–0	2–0 home; 1–0 away
Standard Liège	4–1	3–0 home; 1–1 away	Third qualifying round	Red Star Belgrade	1–0	1–0 home; 0–0 away
Main article: 2007–08 UEFA Cup group stage: Group A Team v t e Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts EVE NÜR ZEN AZ AEL Everton 4 4 0 0 9 3 +6 12 — — 1–0 — 3–1 1. FC Nürnberg 4 2 1 1 7 6 +1 7 0–2 — — 2–1 — Zenit Saint Petersburg 4 1 2 1 6 6 0 5 — 2–2 — 1–1 — AZ 4 1 1 2 5 6 −1 4 2–3 — — — 1–0 AEL 4 0 0 4 4 10 −6 0 — 1–3 2–3 — — Source: [citation needed]			Group stage	Main article: 2007–08 UEFA Champions League group stage: Group E Team v t e Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts BAR LYO RAN STU Barcelona 6 4 2 0 12 3 +9 14 — 3–0 2–0 3–1 Lyon 6 3 1 2 11 10 +1 10 2–2 — 0–3 4–2 Rangers 6 2 1 3 7 9 −2 7 0–0 0–3 — 2–1 VfB Stuttgart 6 1 0 5 7 15 −8 3 0–2 0–2 3–2 — Source: RSSSF
UEFA Cup
Opponent	Result	Legs	Final phase	Opponent	Result	Legs
Villarreal	2–2 (a)	1–0 home; 1–2 away	Round of 32	Panathinaikos	1–1 (a)	0–0 home; 1–1 away
Marseille	3–3 (a)	1–3 away; 2–0 home	Round of 16	Werder Bremen	2–1	2–0 home; 0–1 away
Bayer Leverkusen	4–2	4–1 away; 0–1 home	Quarter-finals	Sporting CP	2–0	0–0 home; 2–0 away
Bayern Munich	5–1	1–1 away; 4–0 home	Semi-finals	Fiorentina	0–0 (4–2p)	0–0 home; 0–0 away (aet)

Throughout the season in Europe, Rangers had developed a reputation for being involved in tight games, principally due to their disciplined, defensive tactics which nullified opponents – scoring 16 goals and only conceding 11 in their 18 matches in the two competitions. This approach intensified after dropping into the UEFA Cup, with none of their matches involving more than two goals; there were four 0–0 draws amongst the eight matches. This cautious tactical approach drew both criticism (for the largely unexciting and unattractive football which resulted from the tactics) and praise (for successfully limiting the opportunities created by their opponents, all of whom were considered to have more skillful, dangerous players than Rangers).

Zenit were considered by the clubs of Western Europe to be a more unpredictable opponent (although not an unknown quantity, as they had reached the quarterfinals of the 2005–06 UEFA Cup and had won the 2007 Russian Premier League). In contrast to their opponents in the final, they scored 28 and conceded 15 in their 16 UEFA Cup games, which included impressive wins over Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich by large margins, but also defeats by Everton, Villarreal and Marseille which had seen them close to elimination.

For the past few years, like the Champions League final, each UEFA Cup final was branded with a unique visual identity. The identity of the 2008 final, unveiled at a ceremony at the City of Manchester Stadium on 6 December 2007, was created by Manchester artist Liam Spencer, who is known for his paintings of the Manchester area; the series of paintings produced for the 2008 UEFA Cup final combines inspiration taken from both the UEFA Cup branding and the City of Manchester Stadium itself.^[11]

European Cup winner and Manchester United legend Denis Law, who also played for Manchester City was appointed as ambassador of the final.

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".^[12]

Meanwhile, there was a mass flow of Rangers fans into Manchester. An estimated 150,000-200,000 Rangers supporters descended upon 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 economy was estimated to be around £25 million.^[13]

Rangers' home ground, Ibrox, was opened to show a live beamback of the match to approximately 40,000 spectators. Fans queued overnight for a seat in the stadium, and the capacity was reached more than two hours before kick-off.^{[citation needed]}

Zenit 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.^[14] However, they were able to call upon their other star names such as attacking midfielders Andrey Arshavin and Konstantin Zyryanov, as well as holding midfielder Anatoliy Tymoshchuk.

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 his tenth start in goal for Rangers following his arrival in January 2008, with first choice keeper Allan McGregor injured. Other notable absentees included right-back Alan Hutton who had transferred to Tottenham Hotspur,^[15] and forward Steven Naismith who had sustained a serious injury.^[16]

14 May 2008 (2008-05-14)

19:45 BST

Zenit Saint Petersburg	2–0	Rangers
Denisov 72' Zyryanov 90+4'	Report

City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester

Attendance: 43,878^[1]

Referee: Peter Fröjdfeldt (Sweden)

Zenit Saint Petersburg[2]

Rangers[2]

GK 16 Vyacheslav Malafeev  90+2' RB 22 Aleksandr Anyukov CB 4 Ivica Križanac CB 15 Roman Shirokov LB 11 Radek Šírl RM 18 Konstantin Zyryanov CM 44 Anatoliy Tymoshchuk (c) LM 27 Igor Denisov  72' RW 20 Viktor Fayzulin  90+3' LW 10 Andrey 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 Oleksandr Horshkov FW 7 Alejandro Domínguez Manager: Dick Advocaat

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' CM 6 Barry Ferguson (c) CM 8 Kevin Thomson RW 28 Steven Whittaker  86' LW 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

The event was marred by Rangers supporters 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.^{[18][19][20][21]}

A Zenit fan was also attacked and stabbed, although it was later established that Rangers supporters were not responsible.^[22] Eleven people were convicted of rioting and given prison sentences varying from six months to 3+1⁄2 years in September 2010.^[23]

• 2007–08 UEFA Cup
• 2007 UEFA Intertoto Cup
• 2008 UEFA Champions League Final
• 2008 UEFA Super Cup
• FC Zenit Saint Petersburg in European football
• Rangers F.C. in European football

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 2008 UEFA Cup Final.

• 2007–08 season at UEFA.com