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Players of CSKA Are Not to Be Conscripted
// Defense minister congratulated the players on the victory over Parma FC
The victory against Parma was supposed to become the brightest event not only for the fans of CSKA but also for the team themselves. And yet, they received the success quite calmly. It seemed to Kommersant correspondent Alexey Zhuk that the players simply did not realize that they had advanced to the UEFA Cup final.
“It is incredible ambiance of the stadium that helped us to win. Massive thanks to the fans who actively supported us throughout all 90 minutes of the game,” Valery Gazzaev started his speech at the press conference following the match. His words were welcomed by a deafening roar of the stands: the fans who did not leave the stadium yet, were watching the broadcast of the press conference on the score-board.
A sector of CSKA’s “ultras”, from which a firecracker fell down striking Parma goalkeeper Luca Bucci, was the loudest to greet their chief coach. By the way, the stands earlier roared approvingly when Parma coach Pietro Carmignani answering the question about the firecracker cut short: “I’m interested in the game, not in scandals.” Absolutely everyone at the stands was already naked up to the waist. After leaving the stadium, most of the CSKA fans carried on celebrating their team’s victory. Many did it until the morning. No serious incidents were reported, though.
There was quite another atmosphere under the stands. The players of CSKA hardly seemed to have realized that they had made it to the UEFA Cup final. Few of them bore a smile on their faces. Most hurried to hide into the bus from the press and noisy fans. Daniel Carvalho, the hero of the day, who had scored two goals and made a successful pass, was the most patient leaving the cloak-room first. He himself called an interpreter to speak to the journalists.
“I’m very happy and I can’t say what exactly I’m feeling now,” he said. “Today’s match was one of the best for me in the line-up of CSKA. And the two goals I scored were the most important of my career overall. I think, only my first goal in the professional football that I scored when I was 18 can be compared to these ones. I’m glad that all the failures I went through last year are over. Now I feel at home at CSKA. Now we enjoy playing football – this is the key to our success. I guess we have excellent chances to win in the final.”
Igor Akinfeev, in his turn, left the cloak-room one of the last. CSKA keeper has always eagerly spoken to the press. “The president of the Russian Football Union Vitaly Mutko, Defense minister Sergey Ivanov and presidential advisor Sergey Yastrzhembsky dropped in the cloak-room after the end of the match,” he mentioned. “What did we talk about? The minister said that as an incentive we wouldn’t be conscripted [CSKA was initially created at the beginning of the 20th century as a club composed of the military men.]… Surely, he was joking. They congratulated us saying that we had made a good present for the veterans for the 9th of May and wished us success in the final.”
“To tell you the truth, probably, I haven’t fully realized yet what happened,” he added. “If somebody had told me a year and a half ago that we would advance to the UEFA Cup final, I wouldn’t have believed. Everything we did looked easy only from the outside. We had tough games against Partizan and Benfica. We had a hard time today too. You know pretty well, that Parma play a defensive side well. Admittedly, a quick goal helped us a lot. Frankly speaking, the mometn Carvalho scored, I already realized that we were in the final. I would like to play there against Sporting. More people will come then. I love it when the stands are full.”
The players of the CSKA had a day off on Friday, they resumed training on Saturday. The team are due to play a return Russian Cup quarter-final match against Saturn (CSKA won the first game 2-1) on May 10. CSKA will play one more match before May 18 UEFA Cup final, i.e either a semi-final one against Zenit (in case the team beats Saturn), or the one against Torpedo in the Russian championship.
Alexey Zhuk
All the Article in Russian as of May 07, 2005
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