Everton’s failure to lift the UEFA Cup in the 2007/08 season is lamented as one of the great missed opportunities of David Moyes’ reign and the fact that the Blues defeated eventual winners Zenit St Petersburg 15 years ago today just added to their frustration.
Moyes’ men overcame a scare against Metalist Kharkiv in the qualifying round for the group stages, drawing 1-1 at Goodison Park on a night when Andrew Johnson missed two penalties (he originally scored his first but it was retaken for encroachment and was saved while the second went over the bar) and the visitors finished with nine men before having to come from behind twice in the second leg in Ukraine to triumph 3-2. Once in the group stage though – which was split into sections of five, playing each opponent once with two home games and two away – Everton found their stride and finished with a 100% record.
First up was AE Larissa for former Blues striker Ibrahima Bakayoko’s Goodison Park return and the Greeks were despatched 3-1 on a night that Leon Osman scored a cracker from outside the area in front of the Gwladys Street. Next it was one of the fanbase’s favourite away days of recent decades as they travelled en masse to Nuremberg with approximately 5,000 enjoying a 2-0 victory inside the stadium.
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While things were going well on the pitch – Everton’s previous home game before Zenit’s arrival was a 7-1 mauling of Roy Keane’s Sunderland – on the eve of the Russian side’s visit emotions were running high at the club’s Annual General Meeting as a proposed relocation to Kirkby caused uproar. The ECHO’s Dominic King reported: “In the end it was exactly how Bill Kenwright expected. Tempestuous, traumatic and torrid.”
He added: “‘I was under no illusions that this was going to be a passionate and angry meeting and it lived up to my expectations,” said Everton’s chairman. And then some.
“As Kenwright was told by one irate individual: ‘You will be the man who murdered the soul of Everton’ if he led the club to Kirkby, while another suggested that moving to Knowsley would ‘be the death of Everton.’”
The Blues’ brickbats weren’t just coming from their own supporters though. Zenit coach Dick Advocaat, the man who prised Michael Ball from Goodison Park six years earlier, seemed to have entrenched views about the British game despite Moyes having artists like Mikel Arteta, Steven Pienaar and the aforementioned Osman in his side. The Dutchman said: “You can’t compare Everton with any side in our league as they play totally different in Russia.
“We play football. Everton are a very physical side but difficult to beat.
“They have not changed since I was in Scotland. In the last eight games, I have seen them work very hard and you do not get the results that they have been getting unless you are very difficult to beat and very physical.
“We are not like that. If we try to fight them, we will lose. So we are going to have to try and avoid a fight.
“They play a typical style of English football. We have more technical types of players.
“In our league, we play pass and move, one and two touch football. Here, it is more about playing the long ball into the area and then you start to fight for it in the final third.
“Okay, maybe Arsenal don’t do that. But the majority of teams play that way. That is the way that is.”
And all this from a boss who had a certain Martin Skrtel in his team!
In truth Everton looked comfortable against a Zenit side that also featured Andrey Arshavin and Pavel Pogrebnyak who would both also come to these shores in the future but they were made to wait for their breakthrough. Half an hour into the contest the visitors’ Belgian international defender Nicolas Lombaerts was sent off by Icelandic referee Kristinn Jacobsson for supposedly handling Tim Cahill’s goal-bound shot on the line.
Television replays showed that it would be a decision reversed by VAR now as the player had used a combination of his thigh and chest. As it happened, Arteta skied the resultant penalty high into the Gwladys Street in a repeat of Johnson’s spot-kick woes earlier in the competition.
The Blues finally grabbed their winner just five minutes from the end when ‘Johnny-on-the-spot’ Tim Cahill bundled in from two yards out after Joleon Lescott’s shot had been spilled. The goal proved an early birthday present for the Australian who turned 28 the next day but unfortunately there was no silverware to follow in 2008.
With qualification to the knockout stages already secured, Moyes was able to give some fringe players a run-out five days before Christmas in Alkmaar as 16-year-old Jack Rodwell made his debut and Icelandic prospect Bjarni Vidarsson made what proved to be his only appearance for the club. Despite AZ needing to win to progress themselves, Everton triumphed 3-2 in freezing temperatures to end the Dutch side’s 32-game unbeaten home run which was the longest in European competition.
The Blues' next port of call in February would be Bergen but it was the Norwegian champions Brann who were caught cold, beaten 2-0 on their own turf before a 6-1 thumping at Goodison. But perhaps Moyes’ men peaked too early.
After dispatching Everton in the round of 16, Fiorentina made their way past PSV Eindhoven before suffering a shock semi-final exit to a Rangers side, managed by Moyes’ Goodison Park predecessor Walter Smith. Smith was a well-respected figure among Blues having presided with great dignity over a difficult tenure at the club between 1998-2002 but he was never able to secure a top-half finish south of the border.
Back in his first spell in charge at Ibrox he had lured big name stars such as Brian Laudrup, Basile Boli and Paul Gascoigne to the club on lucrative contracts but with belts now tightened, his far from vintage team had Jean-Claude Darcheville leading the line up front and the former Everton favourite Davy Weir, by now 38 years of age, marshalling the defence.
To make matters worse for the Blues, the final, where Zenit defeated Rangers 2-0, was played just 35 miles from Goodison Park at Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium. It’s far from being a fanciful claim that Everton could have contended for the trophy given that the likes of Middlesbrough, who have only ever won a solitary League Cup, got to the final two years before while Fulham, who have never lifted a major trophy, made it two years later.
Like in 1985 when the Blues were denied a crack at the European Cup after triumphs for English clubs in seven of the previous nine seasons, this was a great wasted opportunity for them in continental competition. But on this occasion they had nobody to blame but themselves.
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