On December 10, 2014, the group stage of the next UEFA Champions League ended. In the 2014-2015 season, two Russian clubs took part in the main European club football tournament.
Much was expected from Zenit St. Petersburg in the 2014-2015 Champions League. In August, the Petersburgers recognized their rivals in the group, which were German Bayer, Portuguese Benfica and French Monaco. Some experts predicted that Zenit would leave the group. However, in reality it did not work out that way. After six rounds Zenit managed to score only 7 points, which determined only the third place in Quartet C. This allowed the Russian club to stay in the spring stage of European competitions, but participation in the UEFA Europa League cannot be considered by the team as a worthy result. More was clearly expected from Zenit.
As a result, Zenit beat only Benfica (2-0, 1-0). There was a draw in St. Petersburg with Monaco (0-0) and three defeats: two from Bayer (1-2, 0-2) and from Monaco (0-2).
The second Russian club to take part in the 2014-2015 UEFA Champions League was CSKA Moscow. CSKA got the "death group", in which they played Bayern, Manchester City and Roma. Objectively, the German, Italian and English clubs were stronger. However, the army team was able to score 5 points in such a group. True, this did not help to take a place above the latter in group E.
It is worth highlighting the successful game of the army team against Manchester City. CSKA won 2-1 away and played 2-2 at home. The army team scored another draw in the home match with Roma (1-1). The remaining three games were lost to Roma (1-5) and Bayern (0-1 and 0-3).
The final result did not allow the army team to count on performing in European competitions in the coming spring.
