On Friday the fans of the blue-white-light blues met close to the Frunzenskaya subway stop in St. Petersburg to pay homage to the famous Zenit coach by putting flowers on the memorial plaque to Sadyrin at his home. An hour later a press conference was held in Sokos Olympic Garden on the opening of the P.F. Sadyrin International Zenit Supporters Cup.
The press conference was opened by Vadim Pankov, chairman of the Zenit fan coordination committee. Pankov greeted all the tournament teams and congratulated them on taking part in the tournament. He wished the players fair play and thanked the participants for their interest in the tournament.
Yury Segal, the chairman of Israeli Zenit Supporters, explained to everyone that today, as per the Israeli calendar, people ask each other for forgiveness, and that the word-for-word translation of what they say has a relation to football – they wish each other a worthy finale. A worthy finale of the activity that a person had over the course of the year: Therefore, Segal concluded, I wish this tournament to be a worthy finale of all our fan support for Zenit.
After the official part of the press conference ended, the tournament participants, who received special booklets and pens, prepared themselves for the first ever open draw for the tournament. The draw resembled the largest UEFA draws in terms of the teams’ nervousness. The draw results are as follows:
Group A
1. IFZ
2. ZIA
3. Fan Club
4. Tomskneftekhim
Group B
1. IZF
2. AFZ
3. Radio Zenit
4. FBZ
Group C
1. OffSite
2. FCZ Vikings
3. NFZ
4. Oil workers of Yamal Muravlenko
Group D
1. KPZ
2. ZEU
3. Sector 10 Group
4. Fan-Virazh Team
