3-0 is how it ended at Luzhniki stadium. A typical workman-like performance from Gurban Berdiyew’s men, as they waited for their chances and struck with a ferocity that suggests they will be lifting the league title for a second successive year. Alejandro Dominguez was in particularly penetrating form for Rubin, stepping up to convert a penalty for the Kazan club’s second.

Whereas Rubin looked every bit champions, Spartak stand-in boss Valery Karpin must be a little disappointed with his side’s impotent performance. The Krasno-Bely tried to get themselves back into the match by streaming forward, but these frantic attacks looked more like acts of desperation rather than a real threat to the Rubin goal. Speaking of that Rubin goal, Sergey Ryzhikov was in imperious form between the posts. The stopper dealing with everything that Spartak threw at him, and doing it with a considered style.

It’s that kind of style that Rubin will need to show if they are to have any hope of being a surprise package in this year’s Champions League group stage. There are no easy games at this level, but in a group with Barcelona, Inter and Dinamo Kiev, Rubin are going to have to be at the top of their game if they are even to stand a chance of making it out of group F. In reality, Rubin should be looking at finishing 3rd and having a crack at the Europa League title this year.

Of course, Rubin aren’t the only Russian representatives in this year’s Champions League. CSKA have a decent draw in this year’s competition. Manchester United, Wolfsburg, and Besiktas will be making the trip to Moscow this season. Although the German and Turkish champions will be extremely robust opposition, I think Zicho might fancy his chances of second place behind United and sneaking into the knockout phase.

Just when you were thinking that I had made it through a blog without mentioning the cricket…

Congratulations to the England cricket team on winning The Ashes. Andrew Strauss’s men regained the historic urn thanks to a convincing win at The Oval. Congratulations as well to Andrew Flintoff, who signed off on an excellent test career at The Oval. Freddie needs extensive surgery on his knee, and the strains of the 5-day game have proved too much for the Herculean all-rounder. Here’s hoping that he comes back to the international fold in one-day cricket as soon as possible.

Rain in Manchester spared England what looked like a potential hammering from Australia in the first Twenty20 match at Old Trafford. After being put into bat, Michael Clarke’s Aussie side put on 145 from their overs. 55 from Cameron White the stand out score for Australia. Things took a turn for the worse for England and replacement captain Paul Collingwood, when Joe Denly’s first international Twenty20 innings was over first ball. Ravi Bopara’s woeful summer continued, as he was back in the pavilion after scoring just 1 off 3 balls. That’s when the weather intervened, rain forcing an end to play and the abandonment of the match. For Bopara though, this looks like another nail in the coffin of his England career. I say career in the loosest sense of it: Bopara was being tipped at the beginning of the summer as a new hope for England with the bat, a T20 expert who could bring some big scores to the test arena. This simply hasn’t been the case. I’m almost left hoping that Bopara doesn’t make England squads, not because I think he’s a bad player (his first class record is excellent), but because I don’t want to see him do any more - perhaps next time irreparable - damage to his reputation with the selectors. It’s certainly an inauspicious start to Test Cricket, but there are plenty of players who have come back from early disappointments to establish themselves as top cricketers.

In this modern world it is easy to get left behind by technology. Not me though, you can now get Twitter updates on all the latest sporting goings on from me at

http://twitter.com/Peter_G_Oliver