Andriy Shevchenko

[Vesper 27,266]

Shevchenko exclusive on Ancelotti, Mourinho and admiring Lampard

https://theathletic.com/1882055/2020/06/20/horncastle-shevchenko-chelsea-milan-ukraine-ac-mourinho-ancelotti/

“There’s a bunch of us,” Andriy Shevchenko tells The Athletic. Looking back at the great AC Milan side he played in, it’s remarkable how many of his team-mates have gone into coaching.

On Wednesday night, Rino Gattuso masterminded Napoli’s triumph over Juventus in the Coppa Italia final. Pippo Inzaghi’s Benevento are top of Serie B with an insurmountable 20-point lead. Alessandro Nesta may yet bring Frosinone up too, through the play-offs, a feat Massimo Oddo achieved with Pescara in 2016. Cristian Brocchi recently celebrated promotion to the second division after the Lega Pro season was curtailed. His Monza team, owned by former Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi and run by the club’s old chief executive Adriano Galliani, were 16 points clear of the rest and will be in Serie A before you know it. Shevchenko also mentions Clarence Seedorf, Jaap Stam, Hernan Crespo and Andrea Pirlo, who recently completed his coaching badges at Coverciano, Italy’s Ivy League coaching school.

Just as members of Milan’s great team from the 1960s and beyond — Cesare Maldini, Giovanni Trapattoni, Gigi Radice, Nevio Scala and Albertino Bigon — found inspiration working under the mythical Nereo Rocco, the calm leadership of Carlo Ancelotti has encouraged his former players to make the transition from a life on the pitch to one in the dugout. “I think everyone who worked under Carlo took something from him,” Shevchenko says. He calls playing under him a “rite of passage”. To Shevchenko, the number of coaches Ancelotti nurtured provides another reason why that team got to three Champions League finals in five years from 2003. “It tells you there was more to us than just great players. We had smart people too.”

If the pandemic hadn’t caused the postponement of Euro 2020 until next summer, Shevchenko would have been in Bucharest this weekend preparing a game plan for Ukraine’s final group stage match against Austria. Elements of Milan have been incorporated into his coaching staff. Mauro Tassotti, the three-time European Cup-winning defender, left the Rossoneri after 36 years to become Shevchenko’s No 2. “He was the first person I chose when I decided to go and coach,” Shevchenko says. “I spoke to Galliani, who was still Milan’s chief executive at the time, and Berlusconi. I did everything to have Mauro by my side.” Andrea Maldera, Ukraine’s match analyst, is also Milan through and through. His father Gino and uncle Aldo won everything there is to win in red and black in the 1960s and Seventies.

The Milan mentality is evidently rubbing off on Ukraine. “We didn’t lose a game in qualifying,” Shevchenko recalls, “and we were in a group with Portugal, the European champions.” The future looks bright for Ukrainian football. As if topping a difficult qualifying group wasn’t already a source of considerable pride, winning the Under-20 World Cup in Poland last summer is yet more reason for optimism.

Spirits were high because of the momentum Ukraine had generated going into the Euros. Shevchenko says he was so looking forward to the tournament that it was initially difficult to accept the decision to reschedule it. “Psychologically, it was a good time for us. As a country, we live for these moments. Our league doesn’t have the profile of some of the others around Europe. The national team was doing well. Looking back though, there’s obviously nothing you can do about it.”

After succeeding Mykhaylo Fomenko in 2016, Shevchenko was clear about what he wanted to achieve. “At my first press conference I said, ‘Right, we’re going to change the way we play’. We used to counter-attack a lot. I wouldn’t say we were predictable but the structure of our play was totally different. We wanted to be more expansive and to have more control of the game through possession football, positive transitions. We wanted to be a team that creates lots of chances. Looking at our stats over the last three and a half years, the team has come on a lot in that regard.”

As the Premier League restarts, Shevchenko will be watching from his home in Surrey — and not just because Ancelotti is now calling the shots at Everton. “I think Frank Lampard deserves a lot of praise (for the job he is doing at Chelsea),” Shevchenko says. “You know why? He’s got courage. Lots of courage. Frank plays the kids. He believes in them.” And who knows if Lampard sticks around long enough and keeps promoting talent from within, maybe one day Kristian Shevchenko, Andriy’s 13-year-old son and a trainee at Chelsea’s academy, will begin to attract his attention.

Of the managers Shevchenko keeps notes on, it may come as a bit of a surprise to hear him name-check Jose Mourinho, given they only worked together for one season at Stamford Bridge. Nevertheless, Shevchenko insists: “I learned many things from Mourinho. The way he managed the team was very interesting.” We reflect on the Champions League game between Dynamo Kyiv and Mourinho’s Inter in 2009 when yet another Shevchenko goal — the 43-year-old is the most prolific player in the history of the Derby della Madonnina and still gives Milan’s rivals nightmares — threatened to end the Nerazzurri’s treble-winning season before it really got started, only for late strikes from Diego Milito and Wesley Sneijder to complete a famous comeback.

“Jose always finds something out of nothing,” Shevchenko says. “This is his mentality. You must always believe. You can turn a game around in the last second. There are lots of examples of big games being decided at the end, like Manchester United against Bayern in 1999. Two minutes is all it takes. Great teams have this mentality. When you coach top players, they have to believe games can come down to the last 10 seconds. If you believe that, you can even win the Champions League in stoppage time. Look at Carlo’s Real Madrid. This is the beauty of football, but you need to build the right mentality.”

While Ancelotti’s personal touch and man-management skills remain a key touchstone for Shevchenko, no one had a greater influence on him than the legendary Valeriy Lobanovskyi.

Arguably the most powerful image of Shevchenko’s career is of him returning to Kyiv after scoring the winning penalty in the 2003 Champions League final and placing the trophy on a bench next to a statue of the late coach known as The Colonel. It was a trip Shevchenko would make again a year later on emulating Oleg Blokhin, another of Lobanovskiy’s proteges, after France Football awarded him the Ballon d’Or. “It was very emotional for me,” Shevchenko recalls. “Lobanovskiy had passed away by the time I won the Champions League. I knew how much winning these trophies meant to him. My triumph was his triumph. I wanted to share it with him.”

Reflecting on their bond, Shevchenko says: “He was more a teacher than a father to me. I used to listen to him open-mouthed, hanging off his every word. He had a huge impact on me. Unbelievable. Lobanovskiy was very disciplined, a very intelligent person. He was interested in everything. I was at Milan in his later years. He coached the national team and every time I arrived for international duty he was there waiting for me in his office. I used to go in and see him straight away and we’d spend four or five hours just talking. He asked me to note down the training sessions we did at Milan. He was very interested in how training was developing in Italy; the load management, the importance of rest. Lots of things about the job.”

Lobanovskiy was a pioneer, applying science to football long before anybody else. When Shevchenko attended the Milan Lab, little of it was new to him. “The first coach to use physical data and performance metrics was Lobanovskiy,” he says. “He based everything on statistics. The maths never lies. You can have your own opinion but if the numbers on the sheet of paper say otherwise… Lobanovskiy was ahead of his time 40 years ago. He brought in scientists and put a team of them together. He created a model and wrote a programme that gave him precise data on heart rate, workloads, all kinds of different tests.”

One of them helps us better understand Shevchenko’s quick thinking and the alertness he used to show in front of goal.

“There was a test where you had to look at a blank computer screen on which different coloured squares would appear. If, for example, the square was red, I had to push a button on my right. If it was green, there was one to my left. It tested your reaction time and how you react to what you see. It’s simple but it gives you a data set that allows the manager to compare you to the other players. If you go to Dynamo Kyiv now, you’ll find all the results from the physical tests I did as a 10-year-old on a computer.”

Lobanovskiy turned a natural talent into a goal machine. Milan’s scouting report from the famous game at the Nou Camp in November 1997 when Shevchenko announced himself to the Champions League with a breathtaking hat-trick ended after a single paragraph with the line: “It’s superfluous to add anything else.” Italo Galbiati then signed off by engaging caps lock: “HE’S A MILAN PLAYER.” And not just that. Ukraine’s all-time top scorer would probably have become Milan’s record marksman too had he not left for Chelsea in 2006. Only Gunnar Nordahl stands above ‘Sheva’ in their record books.

Quite remarkable, isn’t it, when he couldn’t exactly rely on Inzaghi to set him up for any of those 175 goals.

We laugh in recollection at one in particular his old strike partner managed to score against Lyon, a classic Inzaghi number. “The one where I took a shot, hit the post, then the other post and he put it in! He was a grandissimo striker. It’s hard to find one like him, you know. His reading of the spaces in the penalty area was incredible. He knew where the ball was going to bounce.”

As for Pirlo, well, he knew exactly how to find them. “At the time I retired, Andrea was still playing at Juventus and one day I asked him, ‘Do you even sweat when you play?’ He was young when we were team-mates. Andrea used to run, but once he turned 30 he knew the game so well that he could walk and still do everything better than everybody else. He had the ability to read the moment, such a high football IQ.”

Naturally, training against Paolo Maldini and Nesta at Milanello kept him sharp too. “The games on a Sunday were the easy part,” Shevchenko recalls. “Carlo didn’t want us playing games in training. They were tough and competitive and you risked getting injured in them more than during a game. It’s the truth.”

Shevchenko will expect the same standards when Ukraine next get together. Following in the footsteps of a giant such as Lobanovskiy and coaching his country represents “a great honour and a big responsibility” for him.

And when the Euros finally come around next summer, they could be a revelation.

[OhForAGreavsie 5,773]

On 10/04/2016 at 10:26 PM, the wes said:

Shevchenko wants to manage Chelsea in the future 

 

http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/10/andriy-shevchenko-would-like-to-be-chelsea-manager-in-the-future-5807668/

Hopefully there won't be a vacancy for a long time. In any case, if I had my way, Jody would be up next if he wanted it, followed by Cesc. The time might never come for Andriy.

[NikkiCFC 7,559]

On 4/10/2016 at 11:26 PM, the wes said:

Shevchenko wants to manage Chelsea in the future 

 

http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/10/andriy-shevchenko-would-like-to-be-chelsea-manager-in-the-future-5807668/

Now is the chance but no chance he drops EURO this summer for interim job.

On 4/16/2020 at 3:38 PM, NikkiCFC said:

 

This pretty much tells that he is not for this job.

[Vesper 27,266]

Andriy Shevchenko sacked by Genoa less than two months into club management career

Former Milan and Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko has been sacked by Italian club Genoa after less than two months and without winning a match in Serie A during his tenure

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/andriy-shevchenko-news-genoa-sacked-25954652

Andriy Shevchenko has been sacked as Genoa boss after just 11 matches at the helm after failing to win any league matches.

The former Ukraine international striker was only appointed at the struggling Serie A club 69 days ago but has managed to oversee just one win during a troubled tenure.

Prior to his appointment, Genoa had secured just one victory of their opening 12 matches in the Italian top-flight under Davide Ballardini.

Shevchenko was tasked with reviving the club’s fortunes and steering them clear of the drop zone but he departs with them five points adrift of safety and no on a 20-match winless Serie A run.

Last weekend’s home defeat to lowly Spezia proved to be Shevchenko’s final league match – which he missed after testing positive for Covid – before Thursday’s Coppa Italia exit against Milan.

It was ironic that Shevchenko’s final game at the helm was against the Rossoneri; the club where he had made his name as one of the world’s most celebrated strikers.

Yet the Ukrainian’s struggles as boss were highlighted by Genoa’s attacking struggles – they managed to score just five times in his 11 matches in charges, of which three games as consolation goals in 3-1 losses.

Genoa’s only victory under Shevchenko was in last month’s slender Coppa Italia victory at home to Salernitana – the sole side below them in the Serie A standings.

Despite respectable draws against Udinese, Sassuolo and, most notably, Atalanta – six defeats and a clear lack of firepower ensured a slump in results for the Rossoblu which Shevchenko could not arrest.

Milan fans displayed a banner of thanks to 'legend' Andriy Shevchenko ahead of their Coppa Italia clash against Genoa this week

It had been thought that Shevchenko would be given more time at the helm after the club have already signed five new players in January to bolster the first-team squad.

A grand total in the region of €15million was used to sign Ghanaian striker Kelvin Yeboah, Swiss full-back Silvan Hefti and central defender Johan Vasquez.

Furthermore, the club agreed loan deals for defenders Riccardo Calafiori and Leo Ostigard, the latter arriving from Brighton.

The 45-year-old coach was previously in charge of the Ukrainian national team and he guided the team to the quarter-finals of Euro 2020 last summer.

Genoa’s decision to part ways with the boss comes just over two months after Shevchenko’s appointment following the club's takeover by US investment firm 777 Partners, as he replaced Ballardini at the helm.

The club’s confidence in the Ukrainian was highlighted by agreeing a two-and-a-half year contract through to the summer of 2024.

Two weeks after his arrival, Shevchenko lost his opening game in the dugout 2-0 against his former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho, now in charge at Roma.

Shevchenko’s Genoa have also fallen to defeats against Milan, Juventus, city rivals Sampdoria, Lazio and, on Sunday, Spezia.

He made his name as one of the most prolific strikers in the late 1990s and early 2000s with blistering spells leading the line at Dynamo Kiev and Milan, before an unsuccessful switch to Chelsea in 2006.

Shevchenko’s post-playing career has been eventful, overseeing 52 matches as Ukraine boss following an unsuccessful move into politics.

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Vesper