In his second column for RIA Novosti, Zenit St. Petersburg midfielder Roman Shirokov shares his thoughts on the club’s maiden qualification for the Champions League group stage, achieved Tuesday after a 0-0 draw against Porto.
The Champions League group stage is over, and what a note to finish on!
The first four games have already been analyzed, so we’ll take a look at the last two.
The home game against APOEL went pretty well. We attacked a lot, managed 23 shots on goal, had great chances to score, but couldn’t actually find the net. We need to take a good look at ourselves as to why it was the case that we created so many opportunities but fell short of converting them.
Perhaps it told that it was the end of the season, and we couldn’t pull it together emotionally and physically. The goalkeeper had his moments, but I say it again: We have to take our chances regardless. With the draw (after Porto’s win in Donetsk), we put ourselves in a tricky position needlessly, and although our fate was in our own hands as before, we had the unenviable task of going into the final game against a super-motivated Porto side at their place.
Initially, it looked like our worst fears would be realized. From the outset, Porto put us under the kind of pressure that meant for the first 30-35 minutes we just couldn’t get our act together. For the last 10-15 minutes of the half we settled down and started to control the ball, and of course, when things started looking up the half had to end!
The pattern didn’t change in the second half: Porto attacked with some vigor. We defended. Sometimes well, sometimes not so well. Thankfully, Slava Malafeyev had a magnificent game and made some super saves, and we held out to go through to the spring stage of the competition! The number of shots at our goal (25) was a bit disconcerting. But now’s not the time to focus on what went wrong, it’s time to celebrate with all Zenit fans our first progression to the Champions League knockout stage (which is, by the way, an historic event for the club), and the good style of play that took us there. May it take us to more victories in the tournament!
On a final note I’d like to wish all Russian teams in Europe passage into the latter stages of the competitions, and to congratulate Lokomotiv Moscow for achieving just that (in the Europa League – ed.).
Now it’s time to relax and recuperate for next season, which promises to be exciting and packed with football!
Shirokov contributed this column to RIA Novosti in Russian. The views expressed in this column are the author’s and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
