29 August 2002 - They Should Have Saved Some Of Those Goals For Later

On 29 August 2002, Zenit St. Petersburg secured their record victory, beating FC Encamp 8-0 in the qualifying round of the UEFA Cup.

It was the second leg of the tie, with Zenit having beaten the Andorrans 0-5 away two weeks earlier. In the rematch, Encamp would have been forgiven for hoping for a closer margin of victory and, for the first half, it appeared they might get it, as Zenit were up only 2-0 at the break with goals from Sergei Osipov (14') and Predrag Ranđelović (21').

The visitors maintained that margin for the first twelve minutes of the second half, but then the floodgates opened. Aleksandr Spivak led the assault on Encamp's goal in the 57th minute, followed by additional strikes from Osipov (69') and Ranđelović (71', 73') to stretch the lead to 6-0. Darius Miceika added a seventh in the 86th minute, then striker Andrei Nikolaev--making his first Zenit appearance--completed the 8-0 rout three minutes later.

Although the combined 13-0 result qualified Zenit for the UEFA Cup proper, their campaign ended in the first round with a 4-3 aggregate loss to Swiss club Grasshopper.