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The former Chelsea striker battled back from injury and loss of form to give his battered country a fairytale start to Euro 2012

Not many people speak English in Ukraine and the taxi driver that collected me from the hotel in Kiev at 6am on Tuesday was no exception. Yet there is one word that is on everyone's lips in this country and nobody has any trouble understanding it, no matter where they come from. "Sheva!" said the taxi driver, with a big thumbs up and a smile from ear to ear.

It was a special night at the Olimpiysky Stadium on Monday, one of those rare occasions in football when a fairytale story unfolds that seems almost too good to be true. Andriy Shevchenko, playing at the ground where he started his career and used to be a ball-boy in the days when he idolised Oleh Blokhin, the man who is now his coach, turned the clock back with two wonderful headed goals to vanquish Sweden and spark wild celebrations in a country that has been battered and bruised in the lead-up to these finals.

Ukraine badly needed a good news story but Shevchenko provided one that was better than anyone could have imagined. Kiev partied long into the night, Ukrainian news channels had Shevchenko's goals on loop, reporters conducted interviews wearing shirts with his name and number on the front, and the newspapers had a field day. "SHEVAAAAA! UKRAINAAA!" was the headline on the front page of Segodnya, one of the country's tabloids.

You only had to look at Shevchenko's face to see what it meant to him. He has been a master at putting the ball in the back of the net for the past 17 years, won numerous domestic trophies in Ukraine, Italy and England, as well as the Champions League, and collected far too many individual honours to list them all here.

He scored his first international goal back in 1996 and another 45 had followed before Monday night, including two in the 2006 World Cup, when he led Ukraine to the quarter-finals. But the Sweden game in Kiev was different.

It was special. And it was poignant, which was why Shevchenko was so emotional afterwards.

It was not just the win and his part in it and how much enjoyment it gave Ukraine's supporters but the fact that all his hard work in the build up, when he was struggling with injury and looked like he might miss out on the chance of a golden farewell, had come to fruition. Shevchenko turns 36 in September and it is worth remembering that this is a player who was in so much pain with his back when he got off a plane in Kiev a couple of years ago that he found it difficult to walk.

Shevchenko faced a horrible dilemma. He was desperate to play in the finals, which he had already said would be his final international tournament, but the last thing he wanted to do was fail to do himself justice in front of the people that matter most to him. "I would like to perform at my highest level," he said a few weeks ago. "I won't come near the pitch if I'm not ready. If I'm not completely fit, I don't want to play and let down the fans."

It was genuine and others feared the worst. Oleg Salenko, the former Dynamo Kyiv star who now works as a television pundit, said before the European Championship started that he felt that one of Ukraine's weaknesses was that they had so few players that could be regarded as first choices. He named only five and Shevchenko was not among them. Ukraine, in other words, were prepared for the possibility of life without their talisman.

Shevchenko openly admitted that it would be too much for him to play three games in a week, although it is worth noting that comment was made before he scored the two goals against Sweden that prompted him to declare afterwards that he felt 10 years younger. Olof Mellberg, the man who was supposed to be marking him on the first goal, looked 10 years older as he trudged dejectedly through the bowels of the stadium afterwards.

It was such a beautiful goal. Andriy Yarmolenko's inswinging cross was inviting but only for a player prepared to stretch every sinew, which Shevchenko did to get ahead of Mellberg, leaping forward with both feet off the ground to power the ball beyond Andreas Isaksson. The second was more carefully choreographed, although that should take nothing away from the way Shevchenko executed what was no more than a half-chance. His movement from the corner was brilliant, as he sneaked in front of Zlatan Ibrahimovic before twisting to direct a bullet header inside the near post.

He looked unrecognisable from the tormented figure we saw in England. We can debate long and hard about why things failed to work out for Shevchenko at Chelsea. José Mourinho said after he departed as manager that he felt Shevchenko had lost his confidence and also suggested that the striker had never applied himself in the right way. "He was like a prince in Milan and at Chelsea our philosophy was different, we had no princes," he said.

"Everybody needs to work like everybody else and everybody needs to prove he deserves to play."

Shevchenko had a different take when he was asked a few years ago. "José Mourinho was a great organiser, his attention to detail before matches was incredible, but maybe he needs to speak more with the players," he said.

"The injuries was the main reason why my career in England was not viewed as a success. The Chelsea fans never really saw the real Shevchenko on the pitch."

What is indisputable is that Shevchenko is a class act and the three years he spent as a Chelsea player (the last of which was on loan at Milan) should not tarnish the way we think about him. In Ukraine, as well as in Italy, his status as one of the greatest footballers of his generation has long been assured, although on Monday night's evidence Shevchenko is far from finished. In fact, he is just getting started in these finals, which could be bad news for France and England. Read More

هل تريد وضع المحتوى السابق فى موقعك او مدونتك مجانا؟؟
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.

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