The 2008 UEFA Cup Final was the 37th final of the UEFA Cup. It is UEFA's second-tier club football tournament. The match was played at the City of Manchester Stadium. It is the home stadium of Manchester City F.C., in Manchester, England, at 20:45 CEST (19:45 local time) on 14 May 2008.

The match was played by Zenit St. Petersburg of Russia and Rangers of Scotland. It was called a battle of Rangers coaching staff, with ex-boss Dick Advocaat, currently the manager of Zenit against current boss Walter Smith. Smith has had two times as manager of Rangers. Both coaches led the Rangers to the Scottish domestic treble; Smith in 1993 and Advocaat in 1999.

Zenit won the match 2–0. They had goals from Igor Denisov and Konstantin Zyryanov. It was their first UEFA Cup title. It made them only the second Russian side to win the competition, after CSKA Moscow in 2004–05.

The logo of the final shows a picture of the City of Manchester Stadium, created by English artist Liam Spencer. It was first shown at a ceremony in the stadium on December 6.



Route to the final

Knockout stage

Pre-match

Zenit and Michel Platini asked the British government to ease visa procedures for Russian fans, despite Russia having cancelled visas for British fans travelling to 2008 UEFA Champions League Final in Moscow. However, the Director for British Visa Services for the CIS, Mandy Ivemy, said that "for the U.K. government, visas and biometric checks are a vital part of immigration policy, and we are not prepared to waive them".

Meanwhile, there was a mass flow of Rangers fans into Manchester. Over a hundred thousand supporters 'invaded' the city despite the club's official ticket allocation being just 13,000 and police requests for fans to stay at home. The influx of people resulted in there being no vacant hotel rooms in a twenty-mile radius of the city and the total amount of money that was ploughed into the local economy was estimated to be around £25 million.

Rangers' home ground, Ibrox, was opened to show a live beamback of the match to approximately 30,000 spectators. Fans queued overnight for a seat in the stadium. The capacity was reached more than two hours before kick-off.

Match

Team news
Zenit St. Petersburg were without the competition's top scorer, Pavel Pogrebnyak, who had picked up two bookings in the knockout stages of the tournament and was therefore suspended. However, they were able to call upon their other star names such as attacking midfielders Andrei Arshavin and Konstantin Zyryanov, as well as holding midfielder Anatoliy Tymoschuk.

Rangers manager Walter Smith started with Jean-Claude Darcheville on his own up-front, with a five-man midfield supporting him comprising Steven Davis, Kevin Thomson, Steven Whittaker, Barry Ferguson and Brahim Hemdani. Neil Alexander was making only his tenth start in goal for Rangers, first choice keeper Allan McGregor was injured.

Match details

Match statistics

UEFA Full Time Report

Fan violence

The event was marred by fans rioting in Manchester city centre; these riots started after a big screen that was due to show the match had failed. BBC News 24 interrupted normal programming to broadcast the riots live on television. ITN's flagship News at Ten programme gave a lot of coverage to the riots.

A Zenit fan was also attacked and stabbed. Six Rangers fans were arrested on suspicion of grevious bodily harm.

References

2008 in association football
2008 in England
Sport in Manchester
UEFA
2000s in Manchester