For Juventus this match match marks their return to European competition after a two-year hiatus and a season in the purgatory of Serie B. However with the likes of the legendary Gigi Buffon and Alessandro Del Piero their return to height of the sport was quick and they are capable of defeating any club. Tactically you can expect Claudio Ranieri to express his genius with a tactically efficient approach to minimize the sweeping assaults of Andrei Arshavin, Pavel Pogrebnyak and company. On a injury front Giorgio Chiellini and the man whose brilliant international career was ruined by the lunacy of Raymond Domenech, David Trézéguet, is back. The Bianconeri will be without hard-tackling Cristiano Zanetti and that could be one of the most crucial elements in this match as his midfield play could have went a long way to control the fluid attack of Zenit.
Zenit Saint Petersburg is in many ways a victim of their own success, whereby scheduling conflicts on the way to winning the UEFA Cup and their players involvement in international duty, particularly with Russia, pushed emphasis away from actual league play. While they presently sit seventh in the table they are unquestionably capable of playing at the absolute height of the sport. Their roster is a “who’s who” and once again as a product of their success, are constantly sought-after by other clubs. This in particular saw the distraction of the “Andrei Arshavin saga” which created numerous problems after the Euros but once settled Zenit has been playing with a ruthless edge to it. This past week, that killer instinct became visible as they decimated a very good Terek Grozny squad 4-1 with Andrei Arshavin, Ivica Križanac, Pavel Pogrebnyak and Konstantin Zyryanov littering the net with goals.
Unfortunately for many fans of the game, they haven’t had the chance to watch Zenit, which is a shame given they have amassed an extraordinary group of talent. Led by the hard-tackling Ukraine international Anatoly Tymoschuk, Zenit is one of the most electrifying clubs in the world. Anatoly is ruthless tackler, who makes you earn every blade of grass on the pitch and possesses tremendous vision with the ball. He is joined by top-shelf midfielders of international pedigree that includes the likes of Viktor Fayzulin, Igor Denisov, Konstantin Zyryanov who is one of Russia’s top Footballers and ex-Dynamo Moscow-man Dani.
Equally with Pavel Pogrebnyak back from injury Zenit’s attacking flourish takes a quantum leap forward. In my opinion if he hadn’t been injured before the Euro’s, the talk of the Football world would have been around Pavel and not simply Andrei Arshavin. Pavel Pogrebnyak is a classic predator and while rarely discussed in the Football media, he is a tremendous leader in the club and role model to fans. Up-front with Andrei and Pavel, Zenit also has Alejandro Domínguez at their disposal, who is an absolute whirlwind in the attack, constantly creating scoring opportunities and terrorizing defenses. Defensively Dick Advocaat has continued his assembled a strong core with Croatian Ivica Križanac, Kim Dongjin and Sébastien Puygrenier but they will be without Russian international capped Roman Shirokov, which is a tremendous loss. In addition to Roman out with injury Dick Advocaat will also be missing Fatih Tekke, Alexander Gorshkov, Lee Ho and Alexey Ionov. These injuries will weigh very heavily on the squad and could tip the scales.
While these are far from official, I expect Dick Advocaat to utilize the following lineup:
Vyacheslav Malafeev
Aleksandr Anyukov, Ivica Križanac, Sébastien Puygrenier, Radek Šírl / Kim Dong-Jin
Igor Denisov/Viktor Fayzulin, Anatoliy Tymoschuk, Konstantin Zyryanov,
Danny/Alejandro Domínguez,Pavel Pogrebnyak, Andrei Arshavin,
Juventus lineup is likely going to have more tinkering to it given the health of David Trézéguet however it will likely be along the following lines:
Gigi Buffon,
Zdeněk Grygera, Nicola Legrottaglie, Giorgio Chiellini, Cristian Molinaro, Mauro Camoranesi, Christian Poulsen, Mohamed Sissoko (although I know this won’t happen I personally would like to see Sebastian Giovinco in the mix), Pavel Nedvěd, Alessandro Del Piero, Amauri / David Trézéguet
For true Football fans this is a beautiful match to watch, with extraordinary play on both sides of the pitch and features two masterminds tactically maneuvering their squads.
