Back in the 1980s, before the era of globalisation, the world was a lot smaller. The prospect of being able to watch live coverage of any but the biggest football matches being played thousands of miles away was the stuff of fantasy.
The links between Soviet-era Ukraine and Wales were therefore not too obvious, but football has a knack of bringing people together, as one promising young player who had grown up in the shadow of the Chernobyl disaster was left inspired by one of Wales’ greatest-ever strikers.
Andriy Shevchenko - who FourFourTwo would go on to rank at no.80 in a list of the best European footballers of all-time - did not have a typical footballing upbringing.
Shevchenko’s Ian Rush run-in
“I regularly competed in inter-school tournaments – they’d call me up to play, and we’d travel by bus to different neighbourhoods,” Shevchenko tells FourFourTwo. “That’s when I started to stand out among the kids of my age group.
“I didn’t always win, but that wasn’t the most important thing. Even back then, people could sense the leadership I had on the pitch – I already had a strong mentality.”
“A guy called Oleksandr Shpakov worked for Dynamo Kyiv and used to attend those kinds of matches because he was a scout for the club, looking for young talents who could make it to the top. I remember he came up to me, introduced himself and told me to get ready for a trial.
“After that trial came Chernobyl and my evacuation. In late September or early October, though, after returning to Kyiv, one of Dynamo’s coaches came to visit me. He was surprised I hadn’t rejoined the club’s setup – fortunately, I resumed training.”
In 1990, an overseas trip played a key part in the future AC Milan and Chelsea striker’s development.
“Later, I travelled abroad with Dynamo,” he continues. “We played in two different tournaments: one in Aberdeen and another in Wales, at the Ian Rush Cup.
“I was 13, we won and I was named the best player. It was special because Rush himself gave me a pair of Nike boots.
“Even though the boots were too small for me, I treasured them for years because everyone knew him and he was a Liverpool legend – I tried playing with them once, until my big toes poked through the toe area!”
