Old friend to new foe

Sheva still enjoys lavish praise from Italian opposition but that could change, writes Ben Lyttleton.

AC MILAN fans spent much of their World Cup build-up trying to keep star striker Andriy Shevchenko at the club, but the 30-year-old was seduced by his friendship with Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and agreed a move to London just before the World Cup started.

Shevchenko spoke movingly of his successful seven years at the San Siro and was touched that over tens of thousands of Milan fans launched petitions to beg him to stay at the club. One fan created a website called www.shevarestaconnoi.com (meaning. ‘Sheva, Stay with us’) and over 13,000 fans signed up.

Whether those fans will be quite so pleased to see Shevchenko line up against Italy in Hamburg tonight remains to be seen. The scourge of Italian defences will be leading out his country in their World Cup debut, playing for a place in the semi-finals. For Shevchenko, this will be his chance to say farewell to Italy in the most devastating fashion.

At least the Italy players will know what to expect from the explosive Ukraine captain, who came into the tournament carrying an injury and was poor against Spain before breaking his scoring duck against Saudi Arabia, netting the only goal in the win over Tunisia. Shevchenko seems back to full fitness, although he failed again in the penalty shoot-out win over Switzerland when his kick, the first, was easily saved by Pascal Zuberbuhler.

Shevchenko’s former Milan team-mate Gennaro Gattuso has also impressed in the Italy midfield and has warned his team-mates to expect a tricky battle against Chelsea’s newest big-name striker.

“Sheva can play as a solo striker, a main striker or a withdrawn striker alongside another one,” said Gattuso.

“He is skilful, powerful, but more important than that, he is really intelligent on the pitch. He knows when he has to play for his team and when he has to take responsibility by being a bit selfish.

“What surprised me most is that when I signed for Milan, Sheva was already a big name: but year on year, he never stop improving.”

Poland coach Pawel Janas once suggested that Shevchenko’s presence in the side does not always help Ukraine, but that was far from the case in Ukraine’s 4-0 demolition of Saudi Arabia, when Maksym Kalinichenko was named Man of the Match and Andriy Rusol, Anatoliy Tymoschuk and Oleg Gusev all starred.

But the focus will be on Shevchenko and no-one else, though Gattuso went on to suggest that even the press attention does not deflect Shevchenko from the job in hand.

“In all his years at Milan, despite the media being constantly all over him and all the rumours that he would move on, he never let anything affect his performances,” he said.

“There was a perfect relationship between Milan and Shevchenko: Milan could guarantee Sheva the best environment to express his football genius. Sheva has got the right attitude, and he is a champion. Milan will miss Sheva because he was unique in the way he represented Milan’s style: not only on the pitch but with his exemplary behaviour off the pitch.”

The compliments and friendships will be forgotten today, though Shevchenko is typically generous in his praise of how Italy helped his career. “I owe the country a lot,” he admitted after the win over Switzerland.

“But now I have to play against them in the most important match in Ukraine’s football history. Italy are favourites but the important thing for us is to play with enough heart to make up for any technical shortcomings. The Italy squad is packed with talented players, many of whom are my former team-mates.”

Gattuso did not want Shevchenko to join Chelsea but understood the reasons for his departure.

“We had all hoped until the end that Shevchenko would stay at Milan, not only because he is one of the best strikers in the world but because he was one of the legends of the team,” he continued.

“But we knew it wasn’t up to us to persuade him to stay, but up to his wife. She was determined to move to London, and let his son learn English. In this way, Andriy is a typical Italian guy, for him the family comes always first, even when it’s about his career.”

But back to the game: Gattuso has no doubt that the Italians, who will be without the suspended Marco Materazzi in defence and are waiting on fitness updates from Shevchenko’s Milan team-mate Alessandro Nesta, will know they have been in a game come 11pm German time on Friday.

“In my opinion, Shevchenko’s biggest quality is his incredible ability to adapt to any situation,” said Gattuso.

“In his time at Milan he changed partners in attack many times – and he sometimes was told to change tactics in the middle of a game – but he never had a problem grasping the new situation.”

Gattuso is about to realise just how much easier it is to play with Shevchenko than against him.