Zenit St. Petersburg

matherto said:
Is there any particular reason why Zenit have so much more money than the other Russian clubs?

They seem to manage to strengthen with major signings and the other clubs don't? But I thought most of the major Russian clubs had huge backing.
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One word - Gazprom.

And not all of Russian top clubs are extremely rich, Zenit and Anzhi stand out, the rest prefer to not spend as much money, but still got good squads look at Spartak and CSKA. But the truth is if u wanna get huge players to sign for your club, you gotta make as huge of a bid, be that Zenit, Anzhi, PSG or even likes of Real or Barca. That's how nowdays transfer market works, unfortunately. Dunno if financial fairplay can change that.
 
sounds like some usual money loundering stuff to me. Gazprom's under order of Putin, who's from St. Petersburg, and probably his mafia fellas get the good out of this situation as well. football seems to be making a good camouflage for all the dirty stuff rolling around oil billionaires, politicians, media tycoons etc. or I just became another paranoid conspiracy theorist?

nevermind, I'd rather just try to have fun with what's going on the pitch. when the whistle blows, anything goes!
 
Kanouté said:
sounds like some usual money loundering stuff to me. Gazprom's under order of Putin, who's from St. Petersburg, and probably his mafia fellas get the good out of this situation as well. football seems to be making a good camouflage for all the dirty stuff rolling around oil billionaires, politicians, media tycoons etc. or I just became another paranoid conspiracy theorist?

nevermind, I'd rather just try to have fun with what's going on the pitch. when the whistle blows, anything goes!
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I think there is some truth to that but its hard to prove this kinda stuff.

Like you said though, we all forget about that when the whistle blows, so might as well enjoy it. Not much we can do about the stuff that goes behind the scenes.
 
The same things were said about Deportiva La Coruna.
There used to be a very persistent rumour that Depor was financed by South-American drug kartels. People who claim to know this say that the bulk of the South-American cocaine entered Europe in the La Coruna area...

What can one say about clubs like Anzhi and Grozny and about some Serbian clubs (Arkan used to own a club if i remember well).
 
Kanouté said:
sounds like some usual money loundering stuff to me. Gazprom's under order of Putin, who's from St. Petersburg, and probably his mafia fellas get the good out of this situation as well. football seems to be making a good camouflage for all the dirty stuff rolling around oil billionaires, politicians, media tycoons etc. or I just became another paranoid conspiracy theorist?

nevermind, I'd rather just try to have fun with what's going on the pitch. when the whistle blows, anything goes!
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Chelsea, Anzhi, CSKA, Spartak, Zenit - all have stolen money.. basically after USSR collapse everyone went crazy, all the resources of biggest country in the world got chopped by pieces (Lord of War is great movie btw, remember Cage joy when USSR collapsed?).

Putin is using goverment power behind him to control all that.. Hodorkovski is good example: if you steal from the "Nation" you will get punished.. Yes all of them use resources for their own good..but at least all this crap is controlled by Putin/Medved vector..

Besides guys.. Russia is huuuuuge world wide power.. Can we get at least one team please :) ?

We have our Arsenal already - Cska, now we have one GRAND team Zenit with good players - maybe Russian MU, Anzhi is like our Man City

Oh and this is freaking great for 2018 WC!
 
Yeah that was Obilic Belgrade, who won the Serbian League and came second in 1999 - every other year it Red Star and Partizan in the top two except in 2008 when Vojvodina came second and Red Star 3rd.

I think Zenit is a bit different to Obilic and Depor. Firstly they have historically, even in Soviet times, always been a big domestic club. There were bigger and historically better clubs in the USSR (Dyanmo Kiev, Spartak Moscow, Torpedo Moscow) and Zenit only won the Soviet League once, but nonetheless they would usually finish in the top half and would still be considered a fairly big team given the size of the Soviet league.

Secondly they are the only team of note in St. Petersburg, a city of nearly 5 million people. There is another team called Petrotrest (used to be called Dynamo) who play in the third level of Russian football, and there is another new team called "Pitar" again playing at this level, but both of these clubs are not very strong and have never had a massive following - it would be like say Barnet in the context of London or a team weaker than Unterhaching in the context of Munich football. What is in effect the only team in 4th/5th biggest city in Europe (or the 2nd biggest city in a country with over 140m people) always has the potential to be a big club and indeed in the past (save a disasterous period in the late 1980s early 1990s when the whole of the USSR / Russia was in crisis) has been a fairly big club). A lot of famous current footballers come from St. Petersburg - as well as Arshavin, Malafeev, Denisov etc, there is also Yarmolenko. Being the only sizable club in the city does give them an advantage, at least in terms of fan base, that the Moscow teams don't have. For instance Moscovites could choose from Spartak, CSKA, Dinamo, Lokomotiv (and in olden days Torpedo) whereas someone from St Petersburg who likes football is usually going to be a Zenit fan.
 
Edmundo, you are a walking football encyclopedia. Every time i read one of your posts i'm impressed.
While i was on holiday near the swimming pool i was reading a book by a guy who writes for a football blog and i was wondering if we could start a football blog with some evo-web people. I mean people like you, drekkard, bobbybox, Younggun, Lo Zio, Zeem, The special one, PLF...all people who may often not agree but who can write interesting things about football...

This is completely off-topic, but i'm rather serious about this. Couldn't we start an evo-web football blog? Maybe i will make a separate thread about this.

Sorry to hijack this thread.
 
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cfdh_edmundo said:
Yeah that was Obilic Belgrade, who won the Serbian League and came second in 1999 - every other year it Red Star and Partizan in the top two except in 2008 when Vojvodina came second and Red Star 3rd.

I think Zenit is a bit different to Obilic and Depor. Firstly they have historically, even in Soviet times, always been a big domestic club. There were bigger and historically better clubs in the USSR (Dyanmo Kiev, Spartak Moscow, Torpedo Moscow) and Zenit only won the Soviet League once, but nonetheless they would usually finish in the top half and would still be considered a fairly big team given the size of the Soviet league.

Secondly they are the only team of note in St. Petersburg, a city of nearly 5 million people. There is another team called Petrotrest (used to be called Dynamo) who play in the third level of Russian football, and there is another new team called "Pitar" again playing at this level, but both of these clubs are not very strong and have never had a massive following - it would be like say Barnet in the context of London or a team weaker than Unterhaching in the context of Munich football. What is in effect the only team in 4th/5th biggest city in Europe (or the 2nd biggest city in a country with over 140m people) always has the potential to be a big club and indeed in the past (save a disasterous period in the late 1980s early 1990s when the whole of the USSR / Russia was in crisis) has been a fairly big club). A lot of famous current footballers come from St. Petersburg - as well as Arshavin, Malafeev, Denisov etc, there is also Yarmolenko. Being the only sizable club in the city does give them an advantage, at least in terms of fan base, that the Moscow teams don't have. For instance Moscovites could choose from Spartak, CSKA, Dinamo, Lokomotiv (and in olden days Torpedo) whereas someone from St Petersburg who likes football is usually going to be a Zenit fan.
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Some of the amendments. We have four teams from our city, another team called "Rus" and plays in the third leading league Russia, Petrotrest, which is separate from Dinamo club (Dinamo was disbanded) play in the second league and judging from the game (I personally can watch their matches), they have a big potential and in the future may be a second great team from Petersburg. :D

Great stuff Edmundo, +1 Gerd. ;)
 
gerd said:
Edmundo, you are a walking football encyclopedia. Every time i read one of your posts i'm impressed.
While i was on holiday near the swimming pool i was reading a book by a guy who writes for a football blog and i was wondering if we could start a football blog with some evo-web people. I mean people like you, drekkard, bobbybox, Younggun, Lo Zio, Zeem, The special one, PLF...all people who may often not agree but who can write interesting things about football...

This is completely off-topic, but i'm rather serious about this. Couldn't we start an evo-web football blog? Maybe i will make a separate thread about this.

Sorry to hijack this thread.
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Great idea Gerd, I would love to read that. Im not a good writer but could help you with Russian league as I watch it regularly.
 
cfdh_edmundo said:
Yeah that was Obilic Belgrade, who won the Serbian League and came second in 1999 - every other year it Red Star and Partizan in the top two except in 2008 when Vojvodina came second and Red Star 3rd.

I think Zenit is a bit different to Obilic and Depor. Firstly they have historically, even in Soviet times, always been a big domestic club. There were bigger and historically better clubs in the USSR (Dyanmo Kiev, Spartak Moscow, Torpedo Moscow) and Zenit only won the Soviet League once, but nonetheless they would usually finish in the top half and would still be considered a fairly big team given the size of the Soviet league.

Secondly they are the only team of note in St. Petersburg, a city of nearly 5 million people. There is another team called Petrotrest (used to be called Dynamo) who play in the third level of Russian football, and there is another new team called "Pitar" again playing at this level, but both of these clubs are not very strong and have never had a massive following - it would be like say Barnet in the context of London or a team weaker than Unterhaching in the context of Munich football. What is in effect the only team in 4th/5th biggest city in Europe (or the 2nd biggest city in a country with over 140m people) always has the potential to be a big club and indeed in the past (save a disasterous period in the late 1980s early 1990s when the whole of the USSR / Russia was in crisis) has been a fairly big club). A lot of famous current footballers come from St. Petersburg - as well as Arshavin, Malafeev, Denisov etc, there is also Yarmolenko. Being the only sizable club in the city does give them an advantage, at least in terms of fan base, that the Moscow teams don't have. For instance Moscovites could choose from Spartak, CSKA, Dinamo, Lokomotiv (and in olden days Torpedo) whereas someone from St Petersburg who likes football is usually going to be a Zenit fan.
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Strange that best goalkeeper in the world is still Russian Lev Yashin :)
 
gerd said:
Edmundo, you are a walking football encyclopedia. Every time i read one of your posts i'm impressed.
While i was on holiday near the swimming pool i was reading a book by a guy who writes for a football blog and i was wondering if we could start a football blog with some evo-web people. I mean people like you, drekkard, bobbybox, Younggun, Lo Zio, Zeem, The special one, PLF...all people who may often not agree but who can write interesting things about football...

This is completely off-topic, but i'm rather serious about this. Couldn't we start an evo-web football blog? Maybe i will make a separate thread about this.

Sorry to hijack this thread.
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I think Lo Zio alone can start an evo-web blog. Just copy paste any of his posts and that's a finished article for ya.
 
gerd said:
Edmundo, you are a walking football encyclopedia. Every time i read one of your posts i'm impressed.
While i was on holiday near the swimming pool i was reading a book by a guy who writes for a football blog and i was wondering if we could start a football blog with some evo-web people. I mean people like you, drekkard, bobbybox, Younggun, Lo Zio, Zeem, The special one, PLF...all people who may often not agree but who can write interesting things about football...

This is completely off-topic, but i'm rather serious about this. Couldn't we start an evo-web football blog? Maybe i will make a separate thread about this.

Sorry to hijack this thread.
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Haha, well maybe, but I think the football I know about is not really en vogue at the moment. I find eastern European and Latin American football interesting and the history of how the game developed there in terms of clubs being founded, rivals etc as well. But I think a lot of football editorials are about mathematical tactics and systems, or about 'big' clubs... Which is all very well but a bit peripheral to me. For instance I read the book "behind the curtain" in one session but I didn't enjoy the "inverting the pyramid" book as much. I think the market for editorials is more the latter than the former.
 
IMO it would be great to have somebody who write about Easter European and Latin American football.
I've made a separate thread in the section about the site and i just posted my first attempt, but Milanista will make a separate section.

We need people with your knowledge...
 
Is it possible that Bruno Alves is forcing to Zenit let him out? I don't think that's normal from Bruno Alves. He's WAY more aggressive than that...it just looked like he didn't care.
 
Yeah, Bruno Alves is playing worse and worse. He's our worst signing in recent years (except maybe Bukharov). I've never seen him play a great game in Zenit's jersey. He's either mediocre or (like tonight) horrible. We need to buy a young defender from a lesser known club who wants to play and can actually run! Bruno seems like he's asleep on the field. There are only two good things he can do on the field - long passing and headers. Unfortunately there are much more components to a defender's game.

Criscito is out? I thought he'll recover for the next game. Maaaaan... Yanbayev can't play in CL, so that means Alves will be playing, again. Well, hope he gets enough sleep before the next game then.
 
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Maybe the fact that almost the whole starting 11 have been playing for their respective national teams on Friday and Tuesday has had some negative effect on Zenit's play? Because it's not the first time I see it happening. What do you guys think?
 
Sure, that's most likely a factor.

And I didn't know Terek bought Ailton. He should be a good buy!
 
Watched Malaga's game against Levante today. We're in big trouble, I think. They're very good at scoring against slow defense now that Saviola is in their lineup. I hope Hubocan is back and plays CD with Lukovic as LB. Bruno and Lombaerts are way too slow of a pair.
 
PLF said:
Lukovic can even play CB and he's got decent speed
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Yes, you're right, but I'm not sure I'd like him to play CB. He sometimes thinks he's Messi and starts dribbling in his own half, which is not a good thing to do obviously :) Although he might be better than Alves.

Anyway, here's what I think the line up's going to be Tuesday:

...............Kerzhakov...............
......Bystrov.................Hulk.....
......Shirokov........Witsel..........
.................Denisov.................
Luko...Lombaerts...Hubo...Anyk
...............Malafeev..................

Could be Fayzulin instead of Witsel though.

Or, it could be Denisov and Witsel will be both CDMs with Shirokov as CM, as a more defensive option. I think Witsel may still need more time to adjust to Zenit's play, so playing a CDM might be an "easier" role for him since he doesn't have to worry as much about making forward passes.
 
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wow......Zenit looks even worse then we did on Friday. Luckily I'm too tired to get upset.
 
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"Today, we have shown the whole of Europe, as play the champion of Russia in the most prestigious European competition ... " I really hope Spalletti will take away from this lesson and make any changes, we lose in the second game in a number with a total score of 0-5, Zenit just itself unlike yourself. :((
 
Fucking Bruno Alves, again. The only thing he knows how to do is pass the ball and headers. Fuck this shit.....Im pissed off...What the f was this? Man....these overpaid pricks were barely moving on the field. The only two people who wanted to win are Kerzhakov and Bystrov. Maybe a little of Denisov.

Hulk....I can control the ball better than that. If you're going to play like this, go back to Porto. Burno Alves, pack your bags and go wherever you want to go....
 
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