Football without cigarettes: the winners of Zenit’s anti-smoking campaign visited the team practice

As per tradition, Petersburg schoolchildren attended Zenit's last open practice of the season. There were students from three different schools who won the “Classroom free of smoking” program.

Students from the 7th and 8th grades of three different city schools, 297, 570 and 213, came to the 12:00 noon practice. Looking around, the children searched for their favorite footballers: “When Danny comes I’m going to ask him to sign my notebook!”, “I’m waiting for Kerzhakov”, “Where are they?”. While the players took their time coming onto the practice field the schoolchildren followed Igor Simutenkov, who cleared snow from the sidelines there was so much snow on the field that the lines had to be marked somehow before the two teams played their scrimmage. Radimov then came out with a bunch of orange jerseys and balls. After a couple more minutes the rest of Luciano Spalletti’s assistants came out.

It didn’t take long before the footballers came onto the field. Meira said hello to the children in Russian, and Danny, who everyone had been waiting for, gave a big smile and gave high-fives to all the children. Vyacheslav Malafeev shook each child’s hand. The champion’s column was brought up in the rear by Luciano Spalletti, who gave each child attention.

After a half-hour practice the Zenit players thanked their young fans, taking photographs with them and giving autographs. The frozen but happy schoolchildren left the practice facility with a piece of Zenit in their hearts which they got just by living a healthy lifestyle!