The UEFA Cup gets a bad press. While its bigger, better, more glamorous brother, the Champions League, draws attention with all manner of sexy match-ups between continental heavyweights – and there are some particularly alluring ties this week – Europe’s second tier are relegated to something of a mildly-amusing sideshow. It’s a sad state of affairs, especially because this year’s last 32 has a lot to offer – with a number of high-quality sides poised to resume battle on Thursday evening and a number of intriguing ties still in the balance.
The reality is though, for some, the UEFA Cup is something of an unwelcome distraction from the bread and butter of domestic competition. Just look at Tottenham’s approach to the first leg of their clash with Ukraine’s Shaktar Donetsk, where young Dean Parrett was handed an unexpected debut and on-loan back-up Frazier Campbell ploughed a lone furrow up front with minimal success.
Coming, as it does, sandwiched between Monday’s crucial late victory at Hull and Spurs’ Wembley engagement with rampant Manchester United this weekend, Harry Redknapp’s promised approach (a youth/reserve team XI) to the second leg essentially foregoes any further involvement in the competition they last won back in 1972. So, as a Shaktar side well-drilled by veteran Romanian coach Mircea Lucescu should reasonably be expected to consolidate their first-leg advantage, it’s better to focus primarily on the other remaining English sides.
It is either high-flying Aston Villa or Roman Abramovich-backed CSKA Moscow that will await the Brazilian-inspired Ukrainians (should they take care of business at White Hart Lane) in the next round. CSKA do not resume domestic duties until next month, following a three-month break, yet looked far from ring-rusty in last Wednesday’s pulsating 1-1 draw at a vibrant Villa Park.
Finishing the 2008 campaign as runners-up to surprise winners Rubin Kazan, qualification for next year’s Champions League is already in the bag for the side now managed by Brazilian midfield maestro Zico.
As recent UEFA Cup winners, with victory over Sporting in the 2005 final in Lisbon, the Muscovites are no strangers to continental success. Money injected into the club by Sibneft, the Chelsea owner’s oil company, has enabled the team to recruit Brazilian stars such as extravagant striker Vágner Love (scorer of the brilliant, precious away goal in Birmingham and competition top-scorer with nine already) and talented midfielder Dani Carvalho, recently returned from a five-month loan deal back home with Internacional. Arguably though, CSKA’s star man was grown rather closer to home.
Yuri Zhirkov, a raiding left full-back for Guus Hiddink’s Russian national team, is a hugely effective, quick-witted winger for the club he joined in 2004. Zhirkov – voted Russian footballer of the year, ahead of Arsenal’s Andrei Arshavin – was largely contained by Luke Young during their first clash. In the more familiar sub-zero surrounds of the plastic Luzhniki pitch, Villa should expect the elusive wide-man to exert far greater influence on the second leg.
Regrettably, and contradictorily – given their protracted involvement in the mid-summer Intertoto Cup as a means of getting to this stage – Martin O’Neill will field a much-weakened team in the Russian capital. The Villans’ notoriously thin squad can barely accommodate more than one or two absentees at a time, as the second-string’s limp defeats against Hamburg and MSK Zilina earlier in the competition testify. The club of the Russian Army must, therefore, be firm favourites to progress.
Such a scenario could leave Manchester City as the Premier League’s last remaining representatives. Their helter-skelter two-all draw with FC København leaves Mark Hughes’ side ideally placed to advance to the last 16.
Another graduate from the final Intertoto competition was Deportivo La Coruna; the Galicians slumped to a 0-3 away defeat at the hands of Danish champions Aalborg and so have a mighty task on their hands to turn things round at the Riazor.
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