Today at 12:00 p.m., Zenit St. Petersburg and Austria Wien square off in Champions League action live from Petrovski Stadium in Russia. The game can be live streamed here.
Zenit forward Andrei Arshavin told ESPN he doesn't know what to expect from Wien as he looks to help his own team notch a win.
The Sky Blues are last season's runner-up and are three points clear at the top of the Russian Premiere League after topping rivals Spartak Moscow by a score of 4-2 on Saturday. Zenit is coming off of winning four out of five straight home games, but Arshavin doesn't believe the Wien game will be decisive at this current stage, since he's never seen Austria play.
"I wouldn't like to compare Austria to our previous opponents for one simple reason - I've never seen them play before, and I've never seen an Austrian league match either," Arshavin said, according to ESPN. "So I'll refrain from commenting. We'll see everything on the pitch. But I don't think this match will be the deciding match for making the next round."
Arshavin had no problem with manager Luciano Spalletti deciding to field the full squad against Spartak just three days before the Champions League matchup with Wien, sighting that the team needs domestic success as well as continental success.
"We all play in the Russian League in order to make it to the Champions League tournament the following year," Arshavin said per ESPN. "In terms of our physical shape, everything's alright too. Zenit will be very strong."
Wien, meanwhile, enters the match with some missing pieces after dropping four of its last six games. Wien has been injury plagued as Marko Stankovic, Daniel Royer, Alexander Grunwald and Alexander Gorgon are all leaving manager Nenad Bjelica with only 18 fit players to use. Wien is the reigning Bundesliga champions, but after key injuries have led to the downfall of the team lately it finds itself in fifth place.
"We have had a run of games in which we were not able to bring our full potential to the table," Bjelica said via ESPN. "The players do not have the fresh legs they need to play at their usual level and therefore our overall game is suffering. I think we can already start talking about a crisis."
Zenit will look to keep its home success going while Wien will look to try and get back to its winning ways despite injuries when these two teams meet on the pitch this afternoon.
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