austria wien fail to take advantage of ten-man zenit published: tuesday 1 october 2013, 20.25cet
fc zenit 0-0 fk austria wien
both teams are still seeking their first victory in group g following a match in which zenit had midfielder axel witsel sent off a minute before half-time.
by richard van poortvliet from stadion petrovski
ten-man fc zenit and fk austria wien gained their first points in uefa champions league group g as they played out a goalless draw in st petersburg.
despite the dismissal of axel witsel for a challenge on florian mader a minute before the break, the home side continued to dominate possession for long periods. austria wien, excellently marshalled throughout by captain and defender manuel ortlechner, grew in confidence as the second half wore on but created little of note themselves.
buoyed by a run of five successive wins on the domestic front, luciano spalletti's zenit looked to make a statement from the off. they were controlling both territory and possession and went close to opening the scoring in the 12th minute when hulk's shot from outside the penalty area hit a post.
aleksandr kerzhakov became the all-time leading scorer in the russian top flight at the weekend when he registered his 208th goal in a 4-2 defeat of fc spartak moskva, and the forward had a good opportunity to add to that tally before the break. however, having been put through down the left by hulk, the 30-year-old miscued his strike with just heinz lindner to beat.
nenad bjelica's side, beaten in the austrian cup a week ago by third-tier opposition, had to wait until the 41st minute for their first real opportunity, as philipp hosiner's right-footed drive skimmed the upright. there was one more twist to what was an action-packed first half when, a minute before the interval, witsel was shown a straight red card for a tackle on mader.
the visitors took time to make their numerical advantage count in the second period and hosiner again went close just after the hour mark when his effort was blocked by nicolas lombaerts. as the violets became more adventurous, gaps appeared in their defence, openings which zenit were more than happy to try to exploit. danny was proving to be a constant menace down the left flank, but too often the final ball let sine-belo-golubye down.
austria wien continued to defend stoically, with ortlechner putting in a man-of-the-match performance, and in the end the debutants were fully deserving of their first uefa champions league point.
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