Match № 40

The match № 40, play offs, ninth tournament day, final

SAINT-PETERSBURG – RUSSIA 0:3 (0:1)

January 13th, 2013, Saint-Petersburg, Peterburgsky SCC, 8500 spectators

Referees: Stanislav Vasilyev, Andrey Runov, Yegor Bolkhovitin

Saint-Petersburg: Mzhelskiy, Anuchin(Kompaneyets, 47), Karpov, Kovalenko, Alfyorov, Troyanov, Khodakovskiy (Solovyev, 64, Yakovlev, 78), Zakarlyuka (c) (Makarov, 53), Simonyan, Yesin, Yegorov

Head coach: Vladimir Kazachyonok

Russia: Lobantsev, Karavaev (Masyutin, 90), Efremov (Mustafin, 85), Rebenko (c), Kalyashin, Ermakov, Morgunov, Davydov (Kurzenev, 76), Lystsov, Miranchuk Al., Saramutin (Miranchuk An., 70)

Senior coach: Dmitriy Ulyanov

Goals: Davydov (33), Morgunov (46), Kurzenev (76)

Yellow cards: Ermakov (53), Kovalenko (65)

Best players: Yevgeniy Alferov, Alexander Morgunov

After match comments

Coach of the team Saint-Petersburg Anver Koneyev:

– Before the match we lost 8 players by different reasons. Zakarlyuka felt bad also, but he is a captain of the team, so we dealt that he would play. In match he played as much as he could. But even this was outstanding performance. Our team never had even the chance to fight for the prizes of this tournament. Today we became the silver medalists and lost in the match with strong national team of Russia. I'm quite superstitious person and before the game I wanted to have the same bench for the final game, the same change room which we used to have during the tournament. The toss was as it was. And the reason of defeat was different, but I have no complaints to my players.

Senior coach of the team Russia Dmitriy Ulyanov:

– I thank the organizing committee and the teams, especially the team of Saint-Petersburg. Their performance in the final made it spectacular. Petersburg has a very good team. But I'm proud of my players. We were going to the final, correcting our mistakes, improving from match to match, and won this tournament. I think the best game was with Ukrainian team. Among others I can note the defense line of Italy only. There was nobody stronger than my team and the players of Saint-Petersburg. It is good that our Academies and coaches work so hard and I believe that we will have a good generation of football players by 2014.