A spectacular eventawaits all football fans - Russian Zenit football club is having a match withCypriot AEL team. The third qualifying round of the Champions League isscheduled for 29th of July 2014 and will be played in Larnaca. Thesecond match is planned for 5th of August and will take place in St.Petersburg. The winners will getqualified for the playoff game and join the rest of the teams: "Arsenal"(England), "Port" (Portugal), "Bayer" (Germany), "Napoli"(Italy) and "Athletic" (Spain).
During the 2013-14 season,the football club of St. Petersburg got second place in Russian Premier League.The third qualifying round of the Champions League with Cypriot AEL team mightturn out to be unexpected and bring surprises for the Russian team. AndreVillas-Boas, the head coach of St. Petersburg’s team, said: "We want toreach the group stage of the Champions League, so we must strive through this stepin front of us! We will meet with opponentswho are able to surprise us at any time, thus we should be aware of that andget prepared”. He also added that other important issues to consider whiletravelling are climate conditions, food and the flight itself.
During the ChampionsLeague 2011-12 season, Zenit played with another Cypriot football club – APOEL .At that time Zenit has lost the game scoring 1-2 and following with 0-0 back athome. Andre Villas-Boas has stated out that - "We must use that match as alesson." A famous newscaster from Russia- Gennady Orlov is predicting this game to be different and hoping that Zenit –“has managed to extract the right lessons from the defeat three years ago.” Nevertheless,he admits that all of the teams that are participating in the Champions League arewell trained and qualified.
Good luck to both teams!