The matches of the Russian national team in the qualifying tournament of the European Championship with the teams of Israel and Estonia are shared only three days and 800 kilometers - a meeting with the Estonians will be held in St. Petersburg. This in itself is not a trivial fact, because the national team leaves Moscow to conduct home matches infrequently. It is enough to say that for the first time outside the capital, she played only in the sixth year of her modern history. As Peter prepares for the match at the level of national teams, they tried to find out Izvestia.
The head coach of the Russian national team, Guus Hiddink, announcing the roster for the upcoming matches, noted: during his visit to St. Petersburg, he managed to immerse himself in the football atmosphere that prevails at matches in this city (in July the Dutchman visited the game of Zenit and CSKA, which ended in a goalless draw ) Well, the players themselves probably have not forgotten the roar of the stands at the Petrovsky, which drove them to the gates of the Latvians in June last year. Now their pressure will certainly be no less inspirational. What is not an additional incentive for our team after Moscow, saturated with football?
Last year’s experience is now taken into account by Petersburgers and in the organization of the match. True, this time the players of the Russian team will not settle in a hotel at the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna, but directly in St. Petersburg. “That was the wish of the leadership of the Russian Football Union,” Boris Vakhrushev, first vice president of the St. Petersburg football federation, who oversees the preparation for the game, explained to Izvestia. “As I understand it, this decision was made after consultation with Hiddink, who wants the team to be placed closer Therefore, our team, like the Estonian one, will settle in the Astoria Hotel. By the way, it has long-standing football traditions - Zenit football players usually hold club celebrations in them. And it was in Astoria that they were awarded three years ago silver medals in the Premier League championship. The official delegations of Russia and Estonia will be housed in the most luxurious hotel in the city - “Europe.” By the way, Guus Hiddink also lived there during his summer visit to St. Petersburg. ”
The match organizers have no doubt that on October 11 there will be a full house on Petrovsky. In this case, special attention is paid to the safety of participants in the game. After the meeting between the national teams of Russia and Latvia, the guests complained for a long time that threats had been heard from the stands. Probably, the RFU President Vitaly Mutko also heard them. In any case, during the recent World Cup among girls, he, while visiting Peter, personally held a preventive conversation with the leaders of the radical group of fans of the Nevsky Front.
According to information received by the organizers of the match from the Estonian Consulate General in St. Petersburg, 250 Baltic football fans are planning to arrive in the city on several buses. However, the guest sector may turn out to be more numerous - there are many Estonians living in St. Petersburg who will probably want to watch the game.
“According to UEFA rules, we must provide our guests with no more than 10 percent of tickets,” Nikolai Sklyarenko, director of Petrovsky explained to Izvestia correspondent. “If necessary, we will give them the maximum quota. Although it’s unlikely that there will be more than a thousand Estonian fans. But in any We’ve already reserved the 6th sector of our stadium for them. I hope the Russian fans will also not have problems with tickets. Last year, there were overlays with them - after the meeting between the national teams of Russia and Latvia, we were told that sometimes two or even three people were encouraging. And all with tickets to this place! But then the RFU employees were distributing them directly from Moscow. Therefore, there were inconsistencies. I told Vitaly Mutko about this, and he now suggested that we deal with tickets ourselves. So all of them will be printed in St. Petersburg, and for two weeks now we have been accepting applications for the match. "
Ticket price - from 150 to 4000 rubles. In the second case, of course, we are talking about the VIP box. In general, tickets to the central sectors can be purchased for 600 rubles. They will go on public sale on Friday, October 6th.
All home matches of Russians outside the capital
August 20, 1997. St. Petersburg. TM *. Russia - Yugoslavia - 0: 1.
May 19, 1999. Tula. TM Russia - Belarus - 1: 1.
October 16, 2002. Volgograd. Oooh. Russia - Albania - 4: 1.
November 17, 2004. Krasnodar. HFM. Russia - Estonia - 4-0.
June 4, 2005. St. Petersburg. HFM. Russia - Latvia - 2-0.
* Note: TM - friendly match, OCHE - selection for the European Championship, OCHM - selection for the World Championship.