* mods please correct my English where it's bad if you can, thanks!!!!It's a way for me to learn *(IMG:
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this is the least I can do for Milan's alltime 2nd goalscorer (that could have easily been the first (IMG:
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The Master Of the HouseSheva's family was a traditional military one, the typical family of ex-USSR where commitment to arms and vocational rehabilitation were the one and the same!!!Back then noone believed that an all-blonde baby boy that first saw the light of day on the 29th of September, 1976 would so dramatically change those entrenched ideas and rebel against them. Andriy was not like all the other kids though! He was brought up in Dvirkivshchyna, a small village in Ukraine 90km east of Kiev and at his first birthday he saw people dressed up in crisp, imposing uniforms inebriated by the vodka his father, an army officer had stood them with.
Something's CookingHis mother was the first person to understand that something was out of the ordinary
with Andriy. In spite of her not liking the idea that her only son would join the military she had to obey her stern husband's desires. "Andriy was born to be an artist, I knew it from the start. However if I had said that to Mikola he would have killed me".
First Touch With The BallIn the home-camp of the Shevchenko family the word "ball" was unknown.Not until he first went to school did Andriy discover his aptitude, since he had only been kicking pillows and small round lunch boxes he secretly used to take from his mother's kitchen.It was the summer of '84 when Andriy began his football rebellion.For the first time his father (who had been promoted to brigadier in the meantime) was going to be apsent from home for about two months in order to organise and look over an infant regiment of the regular soviet army in former East Germany.Without the boogieman over his head, eight year old Andriy seized the opportunity and did things that until then he didn't know about and was indoctrinated to avoid.He came out of the house to go to the earthen field of Dvirkivshchyna where
he knew that Nikolai Hrustov, neighbor carpenter's son, with whom he had lucid bidding not to have any contact was.During the following two months Nikolai and Andryi became inseparable friends and the football was their first inamorata.It was then that the headmaster of the football school of Dynamo Kyiv Alexandr Spakov casually discovered Andryi and asked to meet his parents.
My Son Is A Bum?Mikola's return from East Germany put an end to this story.Already credited Commander in chief of the Soviet army for the excellent fashion in which he organised the regiment in a foreign country, father Shevchenko returned home proud and prepared to share his happiness for this achievment of his with his successor to the glorious army of the country.Instead what he came in view of did surely gave him the needle; Andriy had taken off the one-coloured pullover that bore the CCCP emblem and having put on the Dynamo Kyiv training shirt while kicking in the yard the only thing that made him mad with rage; a football.Mikola, though a strict serviceman was not the kind of father that would beat his child.Anryi's discipline was close confinement in free-time and forbiddance to leave home for a month.Not because he had persuaded his mother to buy him the ball but for expressing his objections to the soldiering life his father was so ambitiously prepareing for him.Mikola refused to meet Alexandr Spakov and opted to instead mail him a letter in which he brought into relief that his own was to become an exceptional serviceman
and not any bum with long hair that would play football, listen to Rolling Stones and smoke marijuana.
The Move To KyivIn late 1986, and while the Kyiv residents had shyly started to compromise on life in ,because of Chernobyl, polluted air of Kyiv, Shevchenko's family moved permanently
to the capital of (afterwards free) Ukraine.Andryi then saw the opportunity
occur before his eyes and showed his father that he was not satisfied with the choices he had made for his own life; "He was barely eating, was very melancholic and his grades at school had already started to lower.I always dreamed that he would become a great serviceman, I was never a friend of football but no father likes to see his child pine away and Andryi had for the past two years showed that more than anything he enjoyed playing football" Mikola recalls.Seeing his own son in broken spirit he finally decided to meet the headmaster of Dynamo Kyiv's football school and think out his suggestion."Avocation with football is going to make him stiffer and, essentially, much more disciplined physically and mentally" was the gammon and spinach Spakov told Andryi's father and he agreed approving of the great transfer to Dynamo's school.
Father SilvioAlready in his first year there Anryi became the leading figure.While eleven he led the Dynamo youngsters to win the school championship of the town and hereupon the whole Ukraine confederation one.In his twelve he was the first ever student of the school who traveled (as a companion) outside of Ukraine following Dynamo's men team into San Siro where he trained with the Milan youngsters for two days.He returned home bringing to his classmates presents they had never before seen in the communistic Kyiv, such as Coca-Colas, gums and video games.In his thirteen AC Milan proposed to him to move in Italy in order to join the Rossoneri academies, and in his fourteen there was a guard outside of his house so that he wouldn't go to train.How did that happen?The fourteen year old's fame, reminiscent of Oleg Blokhin
(current Ukraine coach), had already surpassed the Soviet Union's frontiers as besides AC Milan, Ajax and FC Barcelona were also interested in obtaining his signnature while in the meantime the immature young kid gradually transformed into a beautiful teenager that had quite an impact on young girls.So how would he be able to consentrate on studying?He barely got a pass in most courses
and that pissed Mikola off as he saw that Spakov welshed on his promise that he would persuade young Andryi to permanently study in order to ensure his place in the school and continue his career in Dynamo in which he had began to take part in some of the men's training sessions.In January 1990, soldier Nikolai Chehov was commanded by Mikola to guard his house and to brief the brigadier whenever Andryi attempted to leave in order to join the training.This limitation had a positive effect in the control of the moppet who listened to his father and began studying intensively.
That was the last time Mikola believed that his son could finally forget about football and become an army man of quality.Almost a year after, when Andryi had already turned fifteen, at the home of the Shevchenkos came a letter from AC Milan, the usual kind of, the clubs send to blandish the parents of talented youngsters they closely follow up; "You have to be proud of your gifted son.We watch him permanently and we sure hope that he'll be here with us soon".Mikola kept the letter
and for the first time in his life he smiled for what his son insisted he wanted to become.It wasn't the pretty words that made him do so but the signature of the man
that had, obviously, inspired and written them by himself since the odour of the expensive pen remained fadeless; Honoured, SILVIO BERLUSCONI.
In about five months (the 29th of September) Andryi Shevchenko will look himself in the mirror and he will be thirty.He will then have his first football wrinkles, unfortunately in a blue shirt (IMG:
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Goodbye Sheva!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (IMG:
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This post has been edited by dst: May 27 2006, 11:04 PM