Brother beyond

IN A season of success stories at the San Siro, Kahka Kaladze has warmed more hearts than most. It’s not just his conversion from a tough-tackling midfielder into an astute, marauding wing-back, even though the relish with which he has taken to that role has ensured Paulo Maldini will delight them for a few more years in Milan.

It's not even his raids down the left that knit seamlessly into the attacking verve that make AC Milan among the Champions League favourites.

With increasing regularity, Kaladze finds himself lavished with praise by the demanding red and black tifosi. No easy task in a team of Rivaldo, Schevchenko and Rui Costa.

When coach Carlo Ancelotti substituted Kaladze early in recent a game, Milan supporters took to their computers and message boards in fury. The outrage only abated when it transpired Kaladze was suffering from a hip injury.

This wasn't Maldini, that greatest of heroes in Milan's most fashionable club. Rather a 25-year-old defender from Georgia, Brian Kerr's first competitive port of call on Saturday, for a Euro 2004 qualifier.

Kaladze first hit the headlines amid furious finger-pointing at Milan's reckless transfer spending when they made him Georgia's most expensive footballer in January 2001, in a £10 million deal from Dynamo Kiev. Ancelotti wasn't convinced either at first, attempting to off-load the Georgian to Arsenal and Bayern Munich, among others, last spring before discovering his defensive capabilities.

Yet, in less than a year, Kaladze has re-invented himself. His domination of Milan's left flank has been so complete that Milan's lack of naturally wide attackers is often over-looked. Already, less than three months into the year, Kaladze looks a shoe-in for a third successive Georgian footballer of the year award, he has won by a landslide the previous two years.

However, his development as a crucial piece of Ancelotti's jig-saw has come with unwanted baggage.

Georgia, in common with so many Eastern European nations, is obsessed with all football but their own. With their own league struggling to stay afloat amid falling attendances and widespread corruption, the Georgian who has made it with one of the most glamorous clubs in the world is big news. Kaladze is one of the most of the best known national figures. However, it's dangerous to be rich and famous in the country.

He was four uneasy months into his new life of Gucci shoes and Milan catwalks when he was struck over the head by the harsh realities of the life he left behind. On the morning of May 23, 2001, as his brother Levan left Tbisili's Railways Hospital where he was studying medicine, he was over-powered and dragged into a white car by three men, wearing police uniforms. Despite two years of public pleas from Kaladze, the Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze and even the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (who owns Milan), he is still missing.

Kidnappings are increasingly common in Georgia. Freed from Soviet rule for 12 years, the country has yet to fully express itself on the European stage. That hasn't been helped by the two major revolts and the bloody Civil War which followed independence or that the fledging nation shares its border with Chechnya, as many refugees flee into the Paniski Gorge to escape Russian oppression.

Under Soviet rule, Georgia was the most relatively prosperous state. It was the region's only producer of wine and brandy while its beaches and climates attracted a fair share of tourists, banned from travelling outside the Union. All that has changed in the past 10 years. The black market is now estimated to be three times the size of the official economy. In this environment of hot money and uncontrolled borders, kidnapping has become a growth industry.

Each time, Georgia appears as a small, condensed space on the foreign pages, it's to report an abduction of a Spanish businessman, Red Cross workers, CIS peacekeepers or the brother of the country's most famous footballer.

THE abduction of Levan Kaladze stopped the country in its tracks, though. Like so many of the ex-Soviet states, football was a far greater unifier of the population than communism. It was a refuge for its five million citizens, the football stadium a place to forget for two hours. Many Georgians believed independence would spawn a golden generation of footballers rather than civil unrest and war.

Many of the legends of Soviet football were reared in Georgia (as too, rather regrettably, was Josef Stalin), David Kipiani and current international coach Alexandre Chivadze, who captained the USSR in both the 1982 and 1986 World Cups and played in the Euro '88 final. It was only a matter of time before Georgia constructed a team from the ashes of Soviet football.

Eleven years later, they still wait. Pretenders to Kipiani's throne as King of Georgian football have come and gone, Georgi Kinkladze among them. No matter how much his mazy dribbling skills dazzled the faithful at Maine Road or sporadically at Pride Park, Kinkladze was unable to dislodge Kipiani in the public consciousness. Not until Kaladze signed for Milan did the public find a new hero to worship.

Some consider Kaladze's Milan debut as the greatest day in Georgian soccer since May 13, 1981, when Dynamo Tbisili captured the Cup Winner's Cup.

One posting in the Georgian football website illustrates the effect that victory had on people: "The biggest dream was the Cup Winners Cup. I remember watching a replay of the match with my grandfather 10 years later, and by seeing his expressions, I understood that football would never only be a game in my country, for five million people in a tiny nation on the Black Sea, it is a way of life."

Kaladaze was a hero to Georgians, evidence that if they worked hard, there was always hope. Levan Kaladze's abduction instigated public outcry because the bandits were threading on the toes of every Georgian dream.

Kaladze was considered hot property in the country at an early age. Having won four Georgian league titles with Dynamo Tbisili as a striker (he scored in the first minute of his debut at 16), he moved to Dynamo Kiev, where his long-standing and close friendship with Andrei Schevchenko blossomed (these days, they can be seen besting each other in the pool halls of Milan).

He hauled three Ukrainian league medals and two cup medals in his three-year stint at Kiev. And like Schevchenko before him, he speaks very highly of the late and legendary Kiev coach Valeri Lobanovsky.

"It was at Kiev that I became a footballer. That is where players like myself and Andrei became real footballers. I think Carlo Ancelotti is one of the best coaches I have worked with, but Lobanovsky was number one for me," said Kaladze.

Even with a close tie to Lobanovsky, he was always destined for greater things. After almost a year of courting from AC, Kiev reluctantly agreed to part with Kaladze. At just 23, he became the most expensive footballer in Georgian history. Yet, he was always comfortable in his role. In one of his first interviews with the notorious Italian press, he spoke at length about Georgia's problems as a nation.

"I would like to see the country become economically more developed. Georgians need to work together, because war has had a terrible effect on the country. If the country's economy improved, maybe it would help our football because Tbilisi Dynamo has fallen behind Ukraine's Dynamo. I don't expect any considerable changes soon. It will take years, but there are some good players and I think the national team has more promising prospects."

Even before Levan was captured, Kaladze was well on his way to becoming the focal point of a poor nation. Articulate and thoughtful, his stature could usher in a new era for a struggling, new nation. His performances under the stress of his personal tragedy has only enhanced his stardom and while some are pessimistic about Levan being found, Kaladze's belief remains steadfast.

"It is very hard to talk about my brother," Kaladze says. "I am scared to say anything that may stop us getting him back. The police say the car went to western Georgia, but near Mstkheta (10 miles northwest of Tbilisi), the scent disappears. That evening, the kidnappers called my aunt and told her where she would find a letter Levan had written. The letter gave information about the ransom."

The kidnappers wanted $600,000. Even with the regularity of kidnappings in Georgia, particularly in the lawless Pankisi Gorge region where US officials claim Chechen separatists and al-Qaida are active, the demand was mammoth for one of the poorest nations in Europe.

The captors illustrated their intent a few days later, sending the Kaladzes a second letter, confirming the ransom and threatening to kill Levan if their demands weren't met. In a macabre twist of irony, Kaladze arrived in Tbisili the same day as he was due to play many of his new team-mates in a vital World Cup qualifier against Italy on June 2. He played in the 2-1 defeat, receiving a standing ovation from both sets of supporters. Feted for his bravery in the face of tragedy after the match, Kaladze played down any personal sacrifice. "You have to be strong and stand up to these people," he told the local press. Even in the embryonic stages of his career, the defender was comfortable in his role as national treasure. While at Dynamo Kiev, he spoke of how he hoped Georgia would build into a strong nation with a strong economy.

The strain of his brother's capture took its toll on Kaladze, though. While he continued to be feted for his performances with Milan, he implored the Georgian authorities to do more to find Levan. Shaken by his father's threat to commit suicide outside the Ministry of the Interior, Kaladze sought Ukrainian citizenship. All the while, the captors remained in constant contact.

"We received several telephone calls and anonymous letters, and then they sent a video," Kaladze said recently. "Levan was there, blindfolded and begging us for help. Once, my father followed the kidnapper' demands. He was told to take $65,000 to Khobi in Samegrelo, 200 miles west of Tbilisi.

"He did everything they asked and was finally told to take the money into the woods at midnight.

"Something went wrong and the exchange failed to take place. My father was supposed to meet them alone in the forest with the money while the police waited. But, the kidnappers obviously suspected something. Since then, they have kept their distance. I still believe Levan is alive and hope we can have him back soon."

It was only the persuasive skills of Chivadze that convinced Kaladze to continue to play with his country after the final botched operation. He issued an ultimatum that his brother be returned by May 1 last year, or he was quitting the national team.

On his personal website, Kaladze blames the Georgian ministry of the interior for "feebleness, amorphousness and indifference" and said the situation made him "ashamed to be part of the same people, to whom unbridled bandits and hundreds of political prostitutes belong". He has been placated by some more effort on the part of Georgian officials, although he did declare recently: "It's disgusting that every Georgian politician considered it necessary to declare his personal participation to find him but their interest is nothing but populism."

It hasn't affected his displays on the field. Kaladze has played more for Milan than anyone else this season.

HIS popularity in Georgia, where he is a demi-god, means he has good pull. When Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister and former club president, was in Tbilisi recently, he raised the issue with the Georgian President. And Kaladze has promised to reinvest a lot of his considerable salary back into his home country, already having set up a soccer school in his home town of Samtredia.

"Every day, I wake up and think of nothing but my brother," Kaladze has said. "I don't know if he is alive or dead and every day, I ask God to bring him back alive and smiling. We have to believe he is still alive. We can't let the hope die."

With each passing day, hope erodes a little more. When the Champions League final takes place in Old Trafford near the end of May, Levan Kaladze will be two years missing. Should Kahka Kaladze help Milan to that ultimate success, it is easy to know who his medal will be dedicated to.