Shirokov shapes up for Zenit eye-opener

Midfielder turned defender Roman Shirokov is on virgin emotional territory as he prepares to represent FC Zenit St. Petersburg in Wednesday's UEFA Cup final.

Tactical conversion
Signed from FC Khimki as a midfielder in the winter, few could see the 26-year-old challenging the established Konstantin Zyryanov and Andrei Arshavin for a place in the starting lineup, but as things turned out, they were no competition for Shirokov. With Erik Hagen and Martin Škrtel leaving and Nicolas Lombaerts injured, the winter recruit has been converted into a fine central defender.

Virgin territory
Now he is hoping to earn a place in the starting lineup as Zenit face Rangers FC in the UEFA Cup final at the City of Manchester Stadium, and having not been part of Zenit's 2007 title-winning squad, he admits he is a little overawed. "I cannot compare this to any other occasion in my career as I have never won anything serious," he said. "There has been nothing like this before."

Unfashionable clubs
Shirokov started his career at FC Torpedo-ZIL Moskva in 2001 and subsequently spent time with low-profile sides like FC Istra, FC Vidnoe, FC Saturn Moskovskaya Oblast, FC Rubin Kazan and FC Amkar Perm before finally emerging as a player worth watching at Khimki. Nonetheless, he was hardly tipped for greatness when he joined Zenit during the winter break.

Domestic struggles
As it is, he is having greatness thrust upon him. Dick Advocaat's decision to convert him into a defender has been a great success, but while his side have been on fire in Europe, Russian Premier-Liga wins have been hard to come by, and while Zenit have played four games fewer than most of their domestic rivals, they are already 17 points adrift of shock league leaders Rubin.

Rubin parallels
Rubin have won eight of their ten games to date, including a 3-1 triumph against Zenit, and Shirokov thinks they have a lot in common with Rangers. "Rangers are like Rubin," he said. "We can beat them if we take our chances. We had chances against Rubin and had we converted them, Rubin would have lost 3-0 like they did against [FC] Spartak [Moskva recently]. We just have to improve our finishing."

Striking responsibility
That may be no easy matter given that ten-goal Pavel Pogrebnyak is suspended for the final, but Shirokov is not too concerned. "All the other lads will be there to score," he said. "Everybody thought we would have problems in attack against [FC] Bayern {München] when [Andrei] Arshavin was absent, but Pasha [Pogrebnyak] stepped in and decided it. No matter who scores, we just have to win."