How did Zenit St Petersburg make it to the UEFA Cup final ?

As you all might be knowing, Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg will meet Rangers in the final of the UEFA Cup 2007-08 (this season). Zenit upset FC Bayern, while Rangers beat Fiorentina on penalties. Zenit are coached by Dick Advocaat.

Here is a look at Zenit’s path to the final. A similar article for Rangers will follow.

Road to CoMS for Zenit St. Petersburg

Second Qualifying Round

First leg – Vion Zlate Moravce 0-2 Zenit St. Petersburg ( Erik Hagen, Alexsei Ionov)

Second leg- Zenit St. Petersburg 3-0 Vion Zlate Moravce (Pavel Pogrebnyak,Ilya Maksimov, Kim Dong Jin)

Zenit win 5-0 on aggregate

First round

First leg- Zenit 3-1 Standard ( Andrei Arshavin *2, Kim Dong Jin)

Second leg- Standard 1-1 Zenit St. Petersburg (Oguchi Onyewu/Pavel Pogrebnyak)

Zenit win 4-1 on aggregate.

Group Stage- Group A

Zenit 1-1 AZ Alkmaar ( Anatoli Tymoschuk/ Ari)

Larissa 2-3 Zenit St. Petersburg ( N Alexandrou,Georgios Fotakis/Pavel Pogrebnyak,Konstantin Zyrianov,Fatih Tekke)

Zenit St. Petersburg 2-2 Nurnberg ( Pavel Pogrebnyak,Aleksei Ionov/Angelos Charisteas,Leon Benko)

Everton 1-0 Zenit St. Petersburg ( Tim Cahill)

Everton went through as group winners. Nurnberg were second, and Zenit were third. As AZ lost to Everton in their last group game, Zenit progressed to the round of 32.

Round of 32

First leg

Zenit St. Petersburg 1-0 Villareal ( Pavel Pogrebnyak)

Second leg

Villareal 2-1 Zenit St.Petersburg ( Guille Franco, Jon Dahl Tomasson/ Pavel Pogrebnyak)

Zenit go through on away goals.

Round of 16

First leg

Marseille 3-1 Zenit St.Petersburg ( Djibril Cisse *2, Mamadou Niang/ Andre Arshavin)

Second leg

Zenit St.Petersburg 2-0 Marseille (Pavel Pogrebnyak*2)

Zenith go through on the away goals rule.

Quarterfinals

First leg

Bayer Leverkusen 1-4 Zenit St.Petersburg ( Stefan Kiessling/ Andre Arshavin,Pavel Pogrebnyak,Aleksandr Anyukov,Igor Denisov)

Second leg

Zenit St.Petersburg 0-1 Bayer Leverkusen ( Dmitri Bulykin)

Zenit St. Petersburg win 4-2 on aggregate

Semifinals

First leg

FC Bayern 1-1 Zenit St. Petersburg ( Frank Ribéry/ Lucio own goal)

Second leg

Zenit St.Petersburg 4-0 FC Bayern ( Pavel Pogrebnyak*2,Konstantin Zyrianov,Viktor Fayzulin)

Zenit St. Petersburg win 5-1 on aggregate

Incredible journey for the Russians, wasn’t it ? They came so close to being eliminated on several occasions, but in the end survived to live another day.

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