Forgiveness of the Slavs

Patiently answering journalists' questions in the mixed zone, Thierry Henry strokes the back of his head with the immediacy of a first grader, shrugs and smiles bewilderedly, occasionally inserting words like “well, how could we not score so much?”. In fact, all those gathered - about eighty people - crowded here just to ask this very question to the captain of Londoners. But Henry strokes the back of his head again and continues to hold such a surprised tone, as if he had witnessed some abnormal event, and not at all his direct participant.

The match was indeed abnormal. Firstly, it was surprising what happened in London with the protection of CSKA - unconditionally the best in Russia and passed through several European hardening. Either the 3-4-2-1 tactics chosen by Gazaev turned out to be incompetent against the Arsenal scheme, which in this match is more accurately expressed by the combination of the numbers 4-1-4-1 (Gleb and van Persie regularly shifted to the center, to Gilberto Silva, Fabregas and Rosicki, which created dizziness in Rakhimich’s head and a numerical superiority in this zone). Either the lack of Aldonin in the starting lineup affected. Either - most likely - the totality of the courage and the class of Arsenal midfielders and forwards, who scattered with their balls of mercury into their inimitable high-speed attacks, was so much higher than the army’s level on this day that by the break the defense of CSKA was torn to shreds.

The second and main evidence of the anomaly of the event is the preservation of its original account. (“Score 7-0 would be fairer,” Wenger dropped after the match.) The ratio of shots on goal in the first half was displayed in 16: 1, but not every goal scored by Arsenal in the penalty area of ​​Akinfeev was recorded in the column “Shots” ". For example, when Gleb, in the 26th minute, was in front of the ball with the ball, he had so much time to aim that the stands managed to breathe out “Hit it!”, But the Belarusian again, for the umpteenth time, preferred to search for Henri with a pass. In the 27th minute, Fabregas made a weighty request for the title “the most ridiculous miss of the season”, when he shot past the gate after he left behind the defenders and the goalkeeper. But soon, at the 45th minute, Fabregasa surpassed Rosicky, who, striking from 3 meters, had absolutely empty gates in front of him - except for one corner where Akinfeev was lying flat. And landed right on him. A little earlier, Henry had two tete-a-tete with Akinfeev, but the captain of Arsenal in both cases lazy kicked the ball past.

Only in the second half of CSKA slightly straightened his shoulders, raised his head and remembered the existence of the gate in the other half of the field. And even had one completely scoring opportunity. The Brazilian won the Wagner Love and Gallas race in the 58th minute after the ball fired from the Tseeskov half, and Lehmann who dived into his feet did not immediately expropriate the ball. However, after the break, the 37-year-old goalkeeper of Arsenal was more often involved not in direct duties, but in physical exercises and stretching in his own penalty box (so as not to freeze), as well as critical shaking of his head: “Oh, youth, youth”. Young people continued to demonstrate grace and amazing synchronism in creating scoring situations, as well as completely phenomenal extravagance in dealing with them. Closest to the goal after the break were Van Persie and Gilberto Silva, who banged his head at point blank range, but the first was prevented by a 10-cent miss, and the second by Akinfeev’s brilliant save.

The win-win and dry series of CSKA in European competition stretched to four matches. But we can hardly consider the army’s London fortune as an application for greatness - otherwise we will have to consider the similar applications of Middlesbrough, Everton and Aston Villas, which, being completely torn apart by the Arsenal attack, took away draws from Emirates thanks to all of this the same hosts vegetarian approach to the game. But by claiming a victory in the Champions League group stage - by the way, the first for Russian clubs since 1996 - this match is absolutely legitimate.

... Henri was tortured in the mixed zone for about 15 minutes, until when one of the journalists came to his rescue, throwing a life buoy of a possible justifiable version - a new stadium, which is 22 thousand more than the previous one, increased pressure, and all that. Henry did not succumb to the temptation to grab onto this excuse, and he had these considerations about the new stadium: “Probably, many of our fans who did not have enough space at Highbury used to watch only highlights - scoring chances of the matches, thinking it was and there is football. And today they saw what they liked: a game entirely of moments. ”

Dmitry NAVOSHA, London

GROUP G

ARSENAL England - CSKA Russia - 0: 0 (0: 0)

ARSENAL: Lehmann, Kolo Toure, Gallas, Clichy, Hoyt, Gilberto Silva, Rosicky, Gleb (Walcott, 71), Fabregas (Flamini, 89), Van Persie (Aliadiere, 82), Henri.

CSKA: Akinfeev, Ignashevich, A. Berezutsky, V. Berezutsky, Shemberas, Rakhimich, Dudu, Krasic (Aldonin, 40), Zhirkov, Carvalho (Taranov, 90), Wagner Love (Olich, 85).

Warnings: Henri (2), V. Berezutsky (45), Gleb (53), emberas (90 + 2).

London. Emirates.

Judge: Michel (Slovakia).