Star Terek's final frontier

By Eduard Nisenboim

The Chechen city of Grozny is more famous as the centre of a war zone than a hotbed of footballing excellence, but surprise Russian Cup winners FC Terek Grozny will be hoping to show another side to the city when they open their UEFA Cup campaign with a tie against Poland's Lech Poznan.

Basic problems
Terek's achievements in reaching the competition are amazing for a number of reasons. The club does not and has never played in the Russian top flight, and due to the political strife in their country, they will make their debut in European football at Moscow's Lokomotiv stadium.

Russian first
The first side from outside the top flight to win the main cup competition in Russia since Ukrainian side FC Karpaty Lviv won the Soviet Cup in 1968/69, an added-time goal from Andrei Fedkov saw Terek overcome FC Krylya Sovetov Samara 1-0 to take the trophy on 29 May.

Promotion charge
Vait Talgayev's side narrowly missed out on promotion to the Russian premier-league last season, but seem unlikely to do so this season. With 26 games played, they are 17 points clear of the team in second place, having lost just one game all season and with Fedkov having scored an incredible 21 goals.

Veteran players
The key to their success has been getting the most out of some players approaching retirement age. Summer signings like Denis Evsikov from FC Lokomotiv Moskva, Konstantin Holovskoy from from PFC Levski Sofia and Roman Adamov from FC Rostov are young bucks compared to the club's most respected players.

Creaking limbs
"We count on experienced players and it makes sense," said Terek general manager Lom-Ali Ibrahimov. "However as a result of a busy calendar and the venerable ages of our footballers, who have already played 30 matches this season, our team do not look too fresh at the moment."

Old heads
Among the old heads are the 32-year-old Fedkov, who saw action with FC Shakhtar Donetsk and FC Baltika Kaliningrad, 34-year-old Dmitry Khomukha, who was a regular at PFC CSKA Moskva and Oleg Terekhin, who will celebrate his 33rd birthday on the day of the match against Lech and was once a star for FC Lokomotiv Moskva.

Chechen support
Having won the Russian Cup along with his team-mates at the Lokomotiv stadium, Terekhin will thus be doubly at home for the match, and the arrival of 5,000 Terek fans at the stadium - many travelling on a specially chartered free train from Grozny - will be a major boost for the home team.

Tight security
However, even on what promises to be a night of celebration, security will be tight. Dog teams will be searching the stadium for bombs before kick-off, and in addition to the usual miliatiamen who patrol Russian games, there will be 400 special forces soldiers and 30 mounted police in attendance.

No novelty
Such close attention will be no novelty for Terek whose first decade since their foundation in 1994 has been coloured by warfare in their home region. They found themselves excluded from Russian competition for six years during the first Chechen war of independence and have been forced to rebuild from scratch.

Russian momentum
Now it looks like Terek could become a force to be reckoned with in Russia, but their potential in Europe remains unknown. Polish Cup winners Lech will certainly go into the tie as favourites but the Grozny team have targeted a place in the first round proper. Having already achieved the near-impossible to reach the UEFA Cup, the merely difficult may seem a formality.