In the mouth of "dragons"

A single defeat could leave CSKA without the Champions League

The Moscow army team, who recently celebrated winning gold medals in the Russian championship, suffered their first defeat in the 2006/07 Champions League. CSKA, having lost to its main competitor in the fight to get out of the group, Porto, 0:2, has made its task more difficult for itself: now, in order to get into the playoffs, Gazzaev’s team needs to win the last away match against Hamburg.

“Porto” and CSKA are somewhat similar to each other. Both clubs do not represent the strongest national championships, but nevertheless have won European trophies in the recent past. There are a lot of Brazilians on both teams. And finally, the president of the “dragons” - as Porto is called in his homeland - Jorge Nuno Pinta da Costa has approximately the same problems as his Russian colleague Evgeniy Giner: both are suspected of influencing the results of matches by unsportsmanlike means with the participation of their teams. But if the president of CSKA can sue unfounded accusations, then the Portuguese judges will deal with da Costa themselves. Porto's first man is accused of bribing referees. Most likely, he will be able to avoid punishment, despite the fact that Portuguese investigators managed to collect a lot of evidence: here are transcripts of telephone conversations, and the results of searches, and some confessions. But the case is gradually falling apart: Da Costa, who was facing up to five years in prison, was released from prison on bail, after which evidence mysteriously began to disappear from the case.

So the Porto players arrived in Moscow in a good mood and with the expectation of victory. Although it did not guarantee the Portuguese club a place in the playoffs, it significantly brought it closer to leaving the group. Under certain circumstances, CSKA would have been happy with a draw.

Perhaps it was these pre-match plans that predetermined the development of events in this meeting. The army team wanted to start the game calmly and immediately paid for it: in the second minute of the match, the guests intercepted the ball in the center of the field, and in three passes delivered it to someone else's penalty area, where Quaresma shot Akinfeev. So CSKA missed the first goal in the group stage of this Champions League.

A few minutes later, Porto almost scored a second. Three times within one minute, CSKA was close to failure: once the defenders came to the rescue, the second shot was parried by Akinfeev, in the third episode the visiting defender Pepe forgave the army team, missing the empty goal from a meter away. And soon it became very difficult - the Brazilian Dudu was injured, and Gazzaev replaced him with Kochubey, who had never played in the league. However, CSKA finished the first half without any special incidents. Although Porto had a few more half-chances. The army team, in turn, were able to respond only with the active play of Carvalho. But neither the Brazilian nor his partners managed to land a single shot on target before the break.

In the second half, the Lokomotiv stands, which were filled to capacity, waited for the hits. Although not right away. The start was made by Carvalho, whose free-kick was parried extremely uncertainly by Porto goalkeeper Elton. It seemed that things were going well, especially since several dangerous corners followed at the visitors' goal. But in one of the counterattacks, Gonzalez, having received the ball right in front of Akinfeev, accurately shot into the corner - 0:2 at the end of the hour of play, without much chance for CSKA to save.

It cannot be said that the army team did not try. But somehow the “red-blue” defense acted very uncertainly. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen so many mistakes made by CSKA defenders in one match. And if it weren’t for Akinfeev, Porto could well have wreaked havoc on the Russian champions. And not feeling reliable in the rear, the army team did not act too confidently in the attack.

But it is still in the hands of CSKA. If the army team manages to beat group outsider Hamburg away in the last match of the season, then they will be guaranteed a place in the playoffs.

Andrey VDOVIN