Bruno Alves warns Zenit St. Petersburg against well organized FC Porto in the UEFA Champions League
Zenit St. Petersburg are drawn against FC Apoel, Shakhtar Donetsk and FC Porto in the group stages of UEFA Champions League. The Meshki defender, Bruno Alves has reflected his thoughts after drawing against the respective teams
in their group and expressed his emotions to play against his former club in Portugal.
The Portuguese defender joined Zenit after weeks of negotiations with the Dragoes on a reported fee of 22 million Euros. Alves has been the Bomzhi second highest expensive transfer in the history of the Russian club with Danny
Miguel being the most expensive transfer from Dynamo Moscow for a reported fee of 30 million Euros.
Alves revealed that he has been playing in the Champions League for about five years and insisted that Zenit needs to win their opening matches of the cup tournament in order to progress to the later stages of the tournament.
“We have a fairly balanced group that should not be particularly difficult matches but we should not relax. I have been playing in the Champions League for five years, so I think in it is difficult to assume someone
favourite. Zenith is too strong to be written off either and the chances are equal. We should not forget that Porto are the current holder of the European Cup and they play attacking football according to the philosophy of the club. Porto in any case, remains
a well organized team.” The former AEK Athens player was quoted as saying.
The 29-year-old mentioned that the Portistas won the UEFA Europa League last year and are a strong contender to reach the later stages of the tournament.
FC Porto saw some departures recently. Their head coach Andre Villas Boas left Estádio do Dragão for Chelsea FC and their top scorer, Radamel Falcao made a transfer to Atletico Madrid. Alves admitted that losing
an experienced coach and a classy forward is a big loss for the Blues and Whites but insisted that the Portuguese club still has bags of talent.
The Portuguese League Cup winner revealed that he is confident that Zenit can claim maximum points in their respective group under the Roma tactician, Luciano Spalletti.
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