23 Jan 2019
Doha, 22 January 2019. The second day of the “Match Premier Cup” did not disappoint: Hundreds of fans found their way to Aspire Academy to see the clash of the Russian titans, FC Zenit St. Petersburg and FC Lokomotiv Moscow, on Tuesday evening.
The game truly sheet showed some big names: Zenit-coach Sergey Semak’s starting XI featured Italian international Claudio Marchisio, who had joined the Russian club in September 2018 after spending 25 years in the Juventus system, in which he won seven Serie A titles with the “the Old Lady”. The last championship with the Italians he celebrated with a player that was facing him today as an opponent: After the 2017-18 season with Juventus, 2014 FIFA World Cup winner Benedikt H?wedes also decided to continue his career in the Russian Premier League and signed with the three-times Russian champion Lok Moscow.
While the German followed the first half of the match on the reserve bench next to midfielder Manuel Fernandes, member of Russia’s team at the 2018 FIFA World Cup or striker Eder, scorer of Portugal’s winning goal in the final of the 2016 EURO in France, his former Juventus-teammate Marchisio found himself a good scoring opportunity after 28 minutes, but his shot missed the goal by a few centimeters. That shot obviously gave Lok Moscow a push and within two minutes they went ahead by two goals scored by the Russian internationals Fyodor Smolov (35’) and Anton Miranchuk (37’). Zenit tried to get back into the game, but first, Lok-goalkeeper Marinato Guilherme showed a great save against Zabolotny (39,) and then Luis Neto came seconds late to tab the ball in after a Zenit-corner (41’).
In the second half, Lok-coach Yuri Semin changed the entire team, their game plan, however, – putting Zenit under constant pressure - remained the same. Midfielder Alexey Mirnonv did not need more than five minutes to put his stamp on the game, scoring the 3-0 with a real screamer (51’). Close to the end, substitute Emiliano Rigoni found the net to score the consolation goal for Zenit (82’). In the end, the 3-1 win for Lok Moscow was well deserved and the fans can look forward what they are going to see from them in the next games.