BackPage recently gave Football Italia readers the chance to put their questions to Milan great Andriy Shevchenko.
Using the X (formerly Twitter) hashtag #AskSheva, the iconic striker was asked a range of questions, covering his club career with Dynamo Kyiv, Milan and Chelsea, his time playing internationally for Ukraine and his coaching experience with his country and in Serie A at Genoa.
A fitting seven questions were put to Shevchenko – among the topics are who he feels is the best Ukrainian he played with, who his Rossoneri assistant would be if he was coach and which three defenders he always wanted to avoid…
My Life, My Football, is out now in paperback. Get your copy here.
AS: There are so many great memories from the different parts of my career that are important to me, and definitely one of them is that penalty from the Champions League final in Manchester. It could also be the hat-trick I scored for Dynamo Kyiv against Barcelona. Or my last game for Ukraine, in the national stadium. I’m lucky to be able to look back on all of these moments.
AS: Mauro Tassotti – I know because I already made that decision when I became head coach of the Ukraine national team. I chose him then because of his experience and his quality as a football coach and as a human being. He’s ultra-professional and his understanding of the game suits me a lot. He was perfect for my players in the national team, but for Milan, who could be better?
AS: There are far more than you might think, because Lobanovsky’s influence on modern football is massive. It’s not just about his tactical ideas, but he was the first coach to embrace data. He oversaw a database at Dynamo Kyiv that took in performance stats, distances. He was a pioneer of video analysis. He built an entire system, he tested his players and recorded their performances – speed, endurance, reactions. That methodology was revolutionary.
AS: The easiest question you can ask me: Serhiy Rebrov. There is no doubt.
AS: I don’t think about the players I watch like that, I just know who I enjoy watching. Of the forwards playing right now, I like Mbappe a lot. I like that he’s always looking, he’s watching the game, he’s watching his opponent and he’s looking for his chance. He’s so quick, but what makes that effective is the quality of his movement, the fact that he can go left or right and he can shoot with either foot once he has space.
AS: I scored a lot of goals! The first one I thought of when you asked the question was from January 2004, in Rome, a match we won 2-1. We won the scudetto that year and Roma were our main challengers, so it was an important match. It was a long ball from Clarence Seedorf, I caught it on my chest, on the run, the defender was beside me and I stabbed it over the keeper’s head with my left foot. I knew I didn’t have time to open up and take it with my right foot, because the pitch was very wet and the ball would have skidded away. And I had to do it all before the defender got to me. It was a great goal.
AS: I’m going to give you my three, I don’t know what order I would put them in: Javier Zanetti, Lilian Thuram and Alessandro Nesta. That’s not a bad three. My process was always the same, but when I was up against someone like that, it was more intense. I’d already watched a lot of tape, and then in the first five minutes of the game I would figure out how I could trick them, testing them with my movement, trying to find a weakness: Too aggressive? Dropping too quickly? Then I’d build my game around what I saw in those first five minutes.
My Life, My Football, is out now in paperback. Get your copy here.