Coming off of their first La Liga victory of the season, Nuno and company will have to switch gears as they welcome in the Brazilian forward, Hulk, and the rest of the Zenit St. Petersburg squad as Group H gets underway.
Form
22-year-old budding star, Paco Alcacer, scored a late match-winning goal in Sunday's victory giving Valencia a bit of confidence as they had struggled to get going in league play after their UEFA Champions League play-offs with French club, Monaco. Before that, however, the side was quite poor and were not clicking on all cylinders for most of the 90 minutes, struggling against a very stout defensive side in Sporting Gijon.
To start the campaign Valencia had only managed to score once in two previous league matches; the loan goal came from new signing Alvaro Negredo right before halftime against Deportivo La Coruna in a match where they trailed shortly after the half hour mark. This late goal will surely give a side confidence that desparetly needed it as a winless start against sides who they really should have beaten easily was looming.
Zenit St. Petersburg, on the other hand, got off to a flyer in Russia, winning the domestic Super Cup on penalties against Lokomotiv Moskva and went on to win four straight matches to kick off the new campaign. Since then, they have tappered off a tad, falling to third in the league behind fellow Champions League side, CSKA Moskva and Lokomotiv having dropped points in three of their last four matches.
This is the most inopportune time for the Russian side to be falling out of form. Their confidence is already shaky, and now a trip to one of the toughest places to play in Spain is on the cards and hitting their opponents on the counter seems to be the only way forward for Andre Villas-Boas' club at the moment.
Key Players
The hosts are littered with talented young footballers and many of them are playing Champions League football for the first time in their careers. One of the highleted youngsters is 20-year-old left-back José Gayá. He is a lightning quick going up the pitch and posses great awareness to make tackles when they need to happen. His task tomorrow, will be no walk in the park as young Gayá has the great task in trying to defend the strong and powerful, Hulk. Should he succeed, the confidence will be out of the world going into future matches.
On the other side of the ball, yes we all know about the main man for Zenit, but an unsung hero in this squad is 25-year-old midfielder Oleg Shatov. In eight matches played he has already scored four goals, equaling the amount of goals he had all last season. To put this stat into even more perspective, his Brazilian teammate only has one more goal in the same amount of matches played, a remarkable feat.
Referee
A Scottish crew will be manning this match with Craig Thomson controlling the action on the pitch. This man is littered with international experience, taking center stage in both Champions League qualifiers and European Championships qualifying matches. He likes to keep the play going as much as possible before putting the whistle to his mouth, but he is not afraid to show a yellow card to keep things on the pitch mild-mannered.
Prediction
With both sides not playing their both football, do not expect a whole lot of goals in this match. Zenit are a tough, physical side where as their opposition is young and full of pace and creativity. These two contrasting styles of play should make for an interesting watch if nothing else.