Manchester, England - When former Russian President Vladimir Putin phoned Dick Advocaat after the Dutch coach won the UEFA Cup with Zenit St Petersburg on Wednesday night, the politician said that the victory was for the whole of Russia. Earlier, Zenit ground down a resilient Glasgow Rangers side at the City of Manchester Stadium.
Igor Denisov and Konstantin Zyrianov stunned the massive travelling Scottish support with two clinically taken second-half goals to secure the club's first European trophy with a 2-0 win.
The stadium was overwhelmingly in the hands of Rangers fans, with at least 30,000 of the 47,000-capacity crowd supporting the Scottish club, which was playing in its first European final for 36 years.
Several thousand more congregated outside the stadium without tickets, while the Manchester city centre was filled with raucous Gers supporters, believed to number around 100,000.
The night clearly belonged to the Russians though.
Putin, who became prime minister in 2008 as he could not be re- elected as president on constitutional grounds, was born in St Petersburg (then Leningrad) and is said to be a Zenit fan.
But for the politician the victory was not just about the club, it was about Russia strengthening their position in world football.
"Putin told me that I had done a big thing for the whole of the country," Advocaat said.
However, the Dutchman said that the victory only meant something if it was the start of things.
"Hopefully this is the start for Russian football, and good stadiums and good facilities for kids are built. This prize should give Russians the belief that they can be a part of European football," he said.
"If this does not happen, this win is incidental."
Advocaat added that he believed it would be impossible to keep all his players. "With a victory like this, it seems likely that bigger clubs will buy some of our players. We must try to hold onto our players and buy four, five players so that we can rotate."
The former Dutch national team coach said that he had no regrets about pulling out of an agreement he had with the Australian football association to take over the side after the 2006 World Cup.
"Zenit made me an offer that I could not refuse. So I decided to stay, with a little help from Zenit. But Australia has a good coach, he is also Dutch (Pim Verbeek)," Advocaat said with a smile.
In the post-match press conference Advocaat said that Dutch coaches had shown that they are excellent coaches. "Maybe there should be some more Dutch coaches in English football," he said to the amusement of the many English journalists present.
For Russian football the relationship with Dutch coaches has certainly paid dividends. Guus Hiddink has taken the Russian side to the Euro finals and Advocaat has finally added a European title to his already impressive resume.
Advocaat's counterpart at Rangers, Walter Smith, meanwhile, needs to make sure that his side can bounce back from the defeat as soon as possible.
With three league matches remaining and a cup final coming up, the Gers still have plenty to play for.
"It is difficult to judge how much the disappointment will take out of the players, but I hope that it will not take too much our of them and we can go on."
Smith said he was not prepared to blame Rangers' packed match calendar for the defeat.
"This has been our 64th game this season. We have to play a lot of games, but that is the way it is," he said.
"But there is no complaint. When you have a little bit of success you will play that amount of games."
He said that one of the reasons why Zenit won the game was because his side lacked a playmaker like man of the match Andrei Arshavin.
"We have a team that works hard and has excellent work ethics, but we lacked somebody who has a bit of creativity."
