Advocaat shakes up UEFA Cup cocktail

A scouting trip to Glasgow has not unsettled Dick Advocaat as his FC Zenit St. Petersburg side stand "one game away from making history" in their first European final.

Glasgow hype
The 60-year-old Dutchman this week returned to Ibrox, where he won two Scottish titles between 1998 and 2002, to watch Zenit's UEFA Cup final opponents Rangers FC overcome Motherwell FC 1-0. Understandably he could not ignore the excitement surrounding next Wednesday's game in Manchester. He said: "All the newspapers are shouting about the final, hundreds of people are showing up at Rangers' training base – they are building the team up to make them strong, saying each player will get a £2m bonus [if they win] and that kind of thing. So the broadsheets and the tabloids are really firing the thing up. And they are right to do so!"

Now or never
However, any old ties Advocaat may have from his time at Rangers will be forgotten once the match kicks off. "For me it is important to win, nothing else matters," he said. "Having come this far, we have to win this game." He added: "We are one game away from making history. Before [the semi-final decider against FC] Bayern [München] I said to the players: 'If we have one chance to win the UEFA Cup, this is it.' With the quality we have shown and the way we played against Villarreal [CF], Olympique de Marseille and [Bayer 04] Leverkusen, we can play against any team. And they showed that against Bayern."

Self-belief
The 4-0 second-leg victory against Bayern was more remarkable given the absence of the talismanic Andrei Arshavin, something which can only reassure Zenit as they go into the final with Pavel Pogrebnyak – the 2007/08 UEFA Cup's joint-top scorer with ten goals – suspended. "It is all about the squad," said Advocaat, who has rarely had a full complement to choose from but expects Aleksandr Anyukov and Kim Dong Jin to be back from injury for the final. "We just have to go out as we have in all the other games and show we believe in ourselves."

'It's sensational'
Zenit's challenge in Manchester will be to dent a Rangers' defence that has conceded just two goals since moving into the UEFA Cup at the Round of 32 stage. Tellingly, Advocaat experimented with a three-man strike force in training on Friday. "Rangers are very well-organised but we will have our chances, no doubt about that," said the coach. "Both teams are very proud they have come this far. We have beaten bigger sides than Rangers and they have beaten much bigger sides than Zenit. Having come this far, there is no reason to be nervous – just play the game and try to win. Everybody in Europe is talking about the way Zenit are playing. It's sensational! We have to be proud of that."