| CSKA did not have enough help from Abramovich's team Russian CSKA will continue to perform in the European arena. The Muscovites' victory over Paris Saint-Germain with a score of 3:1 did not allow them to advance to the next stage of the Champions League, but gave them the opportunity to compete in the 1/16 of the UEFA Cup. The second representative after Chelsea in the 1/8 finals from Group H was the current Champions Cup winner Porto, who beat the Londoners 2:1.
CSKA's longest season has come to an end. A season that, if lost in Paris, could be called almost a failure. But the brilliant game and excellent result in the last match of 2004 became precisely the last phrase that is always remembered better than the rest. And it seems that the army team did not win the Russian championship and did not leave the not at all deadly group of the Champions League, but they got into the spring stage of the UEFA Cup. This achievement, it should be noted, is quite rare for Russian football in recent years. And thanks to the hat-trick of CSKA captain Sergei Semak, the rating for the season turned from “failure” to a solid C, and maybe even a plus.
So Semak practically with one match eliminated all questions about his possible transfer to another club. You have to be suicidal to sell the favorite of the Red-Blues fans after a hat-trick in the Champions League (by the way, only the second most prestigious club tournament in Europe in Russian history). Especially at Lokomotiv.
“I am happy about the brilliant victory of my team, and at the same time I am very sorry that we did not make it to the next round of the Champions League,” said CSKA coach Valery Gazzaev. — After the final whistle, we did not immediately find out the result of the other match. They hoped that Chelsea would achieve a positive result, but this was not destined to happen. Now we can only regret the missed penalty against Chelsea.” Most likely, Gazzaev misspoke. We must regret the penalty missed in the match with Porto. That hypothetical draw would now put CSKA in second place.
We were waiting for help from London, but we got it from Paris. PSG became the only team that the army team beat on aggregate, and therefore rightly ended up one line above the Parisians. And it was no coincidence that at the end of the match the stands of the Parc des Princes openly cheered against their own, greeting with an enthusiastic roar every successful action of the Russians. The superiority of CSKA was also recognized by PSG head coach Vahid Holilhodzic. “We believed that we were capable of clinging to the knockout stages of the Champions League, and now we are faced with a harsh reality,” said the Parisian coach. - We were shown our real level - it is terrible. We didn't deserve more than fourth place in the group."
Chelsea and its owner Roman Abramovich had their own plans. And they did not include a scandal with another investigation into the involvement of the Russian owner of Chelsea in CSKA, which the Parisians threatened “if something happened.” But still, Roman Abramovich’s club could not avoid any accusations of collusion. True, they are connected with last year’s events. Porto president Jorge Pinto da Costa has released an autobiographical book in which he claims that Chelsea deliberately lost the Champions League semi-final to Monaco last season. “On April 19, 2004, Roman Abramovich and Peter Kenyon met with Jose Mourinho and his agent Jorge Mendes. It was decided that Mourinho would lead Chelsea. After that, Chelsea deliberately lost to Monaco in order to avoid a possible investigation into the fact that the owner of one opponent in the final agreed with the head coach of another opponent,” writes Pinto da Costa, who is himself involved in a football case about corruption, for now, however, as a witness.
It is completely incomprehensible what Mourinho did to deserve such hatred from Porto, with whom he won the UEFA Cup and the Champions League. And it’s unlikely that the attitude towards the coach changed even after Chelsea lost to the “dragons” and missed them in the playoffs. Moreover, many in Portugal took Mourinho's upset appearance after the game as a personal insult. “I’m a professional, and only stupid people don’t understand that I always want to win. This was the case at Porto, and at Chelsea my desires remained the same - as always, Mourinho was imperturbable. “I think that the opponent deserved the victory, they are the second best team in the group, they are much stronger than CSKA and PSG, and I would be surprised if the “dragons” did not make it to the playoffs.” Andrey VDOVIN |
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