2008 UEFA Cup Final
Match programme cover
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| Event | 2007–08 UEFA Cup | ||||||
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| Date | 14 May 2008 | ||||||
| Venue | City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester | ||||||
| Man of the Match | Andrei Arshavin (Zenit Saint Petersburg) | ||||||
| Referee | Peter Fröjdfeldt (Sweden) | ||||||
| Attendance | 43,878 | ||||||
| Weather | Sunny 16 °C (61 °F) 43% humidity |
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The 2008 UEFA Cup Final was a football match that took place on 14 May 2008 at the City of Manchester Stadium, home ground of Manchester City, in Manchester, England. It was the 37th annual final of the UEFA Cup, UEFA's second tier club football tournament.
The match was contested by Zenit Saint Petersburg of Russia and Rangers of Scotland. It was billed as a battle of Rangers managerial staff, with ex-boss Dick Advocaat, currently the manager of Zenit, pitted against current boss Walter Smith, who has had two stints as manager of Rangers, with both completing the Scottish domestic treble; Smith in 1993, Advocaat in 1999.
Zenit won the match 2–0, with goals coming from Igor Denisov and Konstantin Zyryanov, to win Zenit their first UEFA Cup title, and make them only the second Russian side to win the competition, after CSKA Moscow in 2004–05.
Zenit and Rangers had never previously met in European competition, although Rangers had played Russian opposition on 10 prior occasions, winning seven – including a 3–2 win over Dynamo Moscow in the 1972 European Cup Winners' Cup Final – drawing two and losing one. Zenit had never played against Scottish opposition, although they had played in England three times, winning once against Bradford City in the 2000 UEFA Intertoto Cup and losing to Bolton Wanderers in the 2005–06 UEFA Cup and Everton earlier in 2007–08.
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