Friday’s game was a comparatively easy ride, as Rotor, who famously knocked Manchester United out of the Uefa Cup in 1995, are suffering from a deep financial crisis and are doomed to relegation. Croatian striker Ivica Olic opened the scoring on 28 minutes and prolific Brazilian forward Wagner Love added a second shortly before half time. Love completed the scoring with 20 minutes remaining.
“We are looking forward to the match against Rangers,” said Sergey Semak, the CSKA captain. “We know that all the English and British teams are harsh and play physical football. We won’t bottle it and are prepared to give it a fight, we won’t spare our legs in the Rangers match.”
His remark about the physical side of British football could be taken as a sleight on Alex Rae’s controversial kick at CSKA’s Moldovan midfielder Sergey Dadu. The blow taken by Dadu’s head resulted in Rae being suspended for Wednesday’s clash, plus four subsequent European matches, but Dadu doesn’t hold any hard feelings towards the Scottish midfielder.
“I don’t know, I can do nothing about it, it was Uefa’s decision,” he diplomatically offered.
Russian international defender Sergey Ignashevich is back after recovering from an injury that kept him out of Euro 2004. The pivotal defender’s return provides great impetus for the Moscow side as he has savoured Champions League football with Lokomotiv Moscow, his former club.
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However, it is the return to fitness of Love which will be the key at Ibrox, according to manager Vallery Gazzayev.
“In the first leg he was exhausted and this is natural for he’d had only five days off after Copa America,” said the coach, but Yevgeny Giner, the CSKA president and a friend of the Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, fears that the lack of experience in other areas of his team could undermine their chances of getting through to the lucrative group stages.
“We are a young team with almost no experience. This could be our main problem. And I believe that the group stage itself would be a great achievement for us. Matches in the Champions League were our primary task,” he revealed.
Olic is confident that goal can be achieved with a result at Ibrox. With the tie standing at 2-1 in the favour of the Russians, Olic is sure that matching Rangers’ away goal will be enough to secure a place in the group phase.
“We have to score in the return leg, then everything will be fine. Think - we won’t concede two goals,” he said.