Visiting Europe: how Zenit played against the opponent from Switzerland

Zenit St. Petersburg won 5-2 at home against Swiss Sion in a pre-season test match, but the main victory for the blue-white-blues was that they basically met with a team from an unfriendly Russian country. Moreover, she came specifically to the territory of our state, although she was subjected to pressure at home for this. Our football teams, as well as in most other game sports, have not had such matches since February 2022.

Breaking the barrier

Zenit was the last of the Russian teams to play against rivals from the countries that most zealously joined the sanctions against Russia and the confrontation with it. In the evening, at 23:00 Moscow time, on February 24, 2022, the St. Petersburg club took the field in Seville against Betis in the second leg of the 1/16 finals of the Europa League. By that time, a little less than a day had passed since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine.

Zenit arrived in Spain on February 23, and the match was not canceled, although there was talk about it. Only then did the European teams refuse to play with ours on a regular basis. Thus, the German RB Leipzig boycotted the March matches with Spartak Moscow in the 1/8 finals of the Europa League, and the Polish national team refused to play a play–off match for the 2022 World Cup against Russia.

In both cases, UEFA made unprecedented decisions in the history of football — instead of technical defeats to the refuseniks, it allowed them to pass on without resistance, and suspended our teams from participating in their tournaments, where they cannot yet return.

Since then, the Russian national team and clubs have played friendly matches with teams from Africa, Asia, and South America, and have also benefited from the loyalty of the Serbs, the only European representatives in football, apart from Belarusians who escaped a total ban from UEFA.

Zenit has played against Crvena Zvezda Belgrade several times, the last time it happened a week and a half ago in Sochi. I met with Turkish Fenerbahce. Serbian Partizan and OFK came to Moscow to play in the pre—season "Fraternal Cup" with Dynamo and CSKA Moscow - the last such meetings took place last week. In February 2024, Zenit took a step forward in expanding the geography of sparring by playing the Equality Cup with rivals from Qatar, Brazil and China during the training camp in Doha.

But apart from the Serbs, teams from other European countries have not played with ours for a long time. In the autumn of 2022, the RFU almost agreed on a friendly match with Bosnia, but soon the local football federation came under severe pressure from the government and media of its country, as well as a number of members of its own executive committee and key players like Edin Dzeko and Miralem Pjanic. As a result, the match broke down.

Outside politics

So far, it has never been possible to reach an agreement with representatives of Hungary and Slovakia, whose governments are not so hostile to Russia. But Zenit was able to go further in June and agreed on the arrival of the Swiss Sion. FIFA gave the go-ahead for this match, but at the end of June, the Swiss media reported that the local national football federation recommended that the club not go to St. Petersburg.

At the same time, the Swiss public, including football, as well as the media, joined in the criticism of Sion. The former In-Ilbon football player called the team's participation in this match unacceptable and spoke harshly about the president of Sion, Christian Constantine.

"In the current political situation, it's not even necessary to consider this for moral and ethical reasons," In—Ilbon said in an interview with Blick. — I think this is completely wrong. But this is typical for Konstantin. He receives several hundred thousand francs, and the treasury fills up again. He just doesn't give a damn about the rest.

It is not known what kind of replenishment the ex-Sion player was talking about, but, as a source at Zenit told Izvestia, the St. Petersburg club did not pay for their Swiss colleagues to come to St. Petersburg and participate in the match, but only compensated their travel and accommodation costs.

—Our president believes and says that politics and football are different things," Patrick Margueron, head of communications at FC Sion, told Izvestia. — We are here for football. Zenit is a great European club. It's a good game for our team to prepare for the new season. Our president, Mr. Konstantin, thinks so.

The representative of the Swiss club explained that they had come to St. Petersburg to play against a strong opponent and prepare for their championship. He also praised the living conditions in the Northern Capital.

— It all started with negotiations with the player's agent of our team, — said Margueron. — He organized several friendly matches around the world and organized the game of Russia against Granada, an international match. He asked the club, our president, to organize this game. We came here to play against a strong opponent, that's our goal — to look for strong sparring sessions before the season in order to prepare well for the championship. Almost everyone in the club visited St. Petersburg for the first time. We didn't have much time to see the city, but from what we saw, I can say that the city is very beautiful. We stayed in a nice hotel and enjoyed the last match and the whole trip.

Devastating score

Russian midfielder Anton Miranchuk has been playing for Sion for a year now. He spent his first season unstable, but it is possible that now he will get more opportunities for implementation. Anyway, the club says they really appreciate and trust him. The formal confirmation of these words is that Anton went to the match with Zenit with the captain's armband.

He managed to distinguish himself during the meeting, but by that time Zenit was already dominating. Maxim Glushenkov and Matteo Cassierra scored goals for the visitors in the first 20 minutes. Before the break, Ilyas Shuaref reduced the gap in the score. In the middle of the second half, the young Vadim Shilov and the veteran of the blue-white-blue Alexander Erokhin brought the matter to a rout. Miranchuk immediately scored the second goal against the hosts, but Zenit had the last word — in the 76th minute, Sergey Volkov scored the fifth goal against the opponent.

"It was a good match, a good opponent, and we are happy with the result and our performance," Zenit midfielder Alexander Erokhin said in a conversation with Izvestia. — It was a good opportunity to test yourself before the season against a very strong opponent — thanks to the club for agreeing with Sion and giving us the opportunity to play with him. Now we are preparing further.

Zenit won, but the main result of the match was that even domestic pressure did not prevent Sion from reaching St. Petersburg. Zenit representatives hope that this is the first step towards building bridges with other European clubs and increasing the chances of a breakup from UEFA.