Zenit lose no sleep over hotel prank

Winning the UEFA Cup final on Wednesday was the ideal way for Zenit St Petersburg players to forget all about the bad night's sleep they had thanks to a prank by Rangers fans in their hotel.

Goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev said the team were woken up by a middle-of-the-night fire alarm on the eve of their 2-0 victory over Rangers at the City of Manchester stadium.

"At 12 o'clock (midnight) the alarm went off, everyone ran out of their rooms, we thought we were on fire," a smiling Malafeev told reporters while he clutched the large trophy.

"But then they explained that it was three Glasgow fans who had set off the alarm on the third floor."

The disruption did not put the players off their task though with Igor Denisov and Konstantin Zyrianov scoring to secure a victory man-of-the-match Andrei Arshavin was still getting to grips with.

"I think it will only sink in when we get back to St Petersburg because there will already be some sort of celebrations," he said.

"I am glad we won the trophy for St Petersburg and also for the whole country. I think they will even have been watching it in Vladivostok," he added, referring to a city several time zones away from St Petersburg.