Wolfsburg surge to the top after crucial win in Moscow

By Dmitriy Rogovitskiy

MOSCOW (Reuters) – VfL Wolfsburg surged to the top of Group B in the Champions League as substitute Andre Schurrle’s heroics saw them beat CSKA Moscow 2-0 at the Arena Khimki and put them in pole position for a place in the knockout stages.

CSKA goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev made a terrible blunder, somehow parrying Schurrle’s shot from an acute angle over his own line in the 67th minute, before the winger finished the job with Wolfsburg’s second two minutes from time.

It was the first away win by any team in the tightly fought group and put the German side on nine points, two ahead of Manchester United and three clear of PSV Eindhoven, who meet later on Wednesday.

Schurrle’s excellence left CSKA’s hopes of qualifying looking bleak as they lie bottom of the group on four points.

Wolfsburg’s victory was a triumph for patience and quality on the counter-attack but CSKA will look back on a crucial miss from Serbian Zoran Tosic who hit the post with a clear-cut opportunity just minutes before Schurrle struck.

The hosts had struggled to settle in the first half, their best opportunity falling to the lively Ahmed Musa on 34 minutes, but the Nigerian international could only hit the side netting from an acute angle.

Wolfsburg, with most of the possession were looking comfortable with the ball, but themselves struggled to create much as they sat deep and tried to hit their opponents on the break.

Following a few strong words from head coach Leonid Slutski at halftime, the home side improved after the resumption with the impressive Alan Dzagoev having his shot well saved by Diego Benaglio when Wolfsburg failed to deal with a corner.

Dzagoev was instrumental again as CSKA almost took the lead in the 62nd minute, setting up Tosic to strike his left-footed shot from just outside the box against the post.

Wolfsburg took the lead largely against the run of play but the introduction of Schurrle just after the hour mark made all the difference to their counter-attacking.

A long, searching ball found him on the right hand side and the German international unleashed his hopeful effort which Akinfeev contrived to bundle into the net. It was officially credited as an own goal.

There was no argument about Schurrle’s second belonging to him as the former Chelsea man volleyed a late second which wrong-footed the hapless Russian international Akinfeev.

(Reporting By Dmitriy Rogovitskiy, editing by Ian Chadband)