“I’d already decided the journey that began in Kyiv would end in Kyiv.”
Andriy Shevchenko was speaking to The Guardian of London about his decision to turn down offers from bigger clubs to return to his hometown side three years ago, and the quote is prophetic in light of his Euro 2012 heroics.
In the same stadium where, in 1999, two goals against Real Madrid announced Shevchenko’s arrival as a global superstar and lifted Dynamo Kyiv into the Champions League semi-finals, the striker wrote a fitting final chapter to his storied career.
Shevchenko retired from the international game in the wake of Ukraine’s elimination, but not before providing a signature moment. He twice deposited pinpoint headers into the back of the Swedish net in Ukraine’s Euro 2012 tournament opener at Olympic Stadium, sending the Yellow-Blues supporters who had feared the team would embarrass the nation into raptures.
Shevchenko’s unrestrained, full-sprint celebration after the second goal, his face betraying a hint of disbelief, is the lasting image of the tournament for Ukrainians. It only furthered the 35-year-old’s iconic status in the country.
“For both Ukrainian and other peoples, Andriy Shevchenko is one of the main symbols of independent Ukraine,” said Artem Frankov, editor of Football! Magazine. “(He) is the pride of the Ukrainian people.”
Such claims may be hyperbole, but they hint at the unique relationship Shevchenko has with his countrymen. His growth mirrored that of Ukraine in the post-Soviet world. The footballer came of age at the dawn of independence, as the nation experienced an era of uncertainty fraught with tentative steps forward and frustrating setbacks.
Ukraine has a proud football history, having produced Oleg Blokhin and Ihor Belanov, both of whom won the Golden Ball as European Player of the Year while representing the Soviet Union. The newly formed Ukrainian national team, however, was a disaster. Most of the best Ukrainian players in the early ‘90s chose to play for the more-established Russian team. The result was years of losing, and many doubted whether the side could ever establish itself.
Around the same time, Shevchenko was experiencing his own crisis of confidence. According to a 2006 interview with the Observer: “When he was 16, Shevchenko failed a dribbling test for a place at a specialist sports university in Kyiv. ‘After that, I had to choose: whether to continue with football or take another direction,’ he said. ‘It was difficult, but I never lost my self-belief. I told my parents I wanted a bit more time to prove myself. A few weeks later, Dynamo’s second team stepped in. A year later [in 1994] I was playing in the first team.’”
In the absence of a competitive national team, the Dynamo’s successes of the ‘90s were a point of Ukrainian pride. From the time Shevchenko was called into the first team in 1994 to the time he left six years later, Dynamo won six domestic titles and made the Champions League quarter-finals in ’98 before the high point of the semi-final run in ’99. It was a rallying point for a nation still trying to carve out its identity.
“(Having heroes) is especially important in our divided country,” said Iryna Bekeshkina, a Kyiv-based sociologist.
Shevchenko developed a cult following for his no-nonsense professionalism — “There was no drinking, no distraction, just training and playing football,” Frankov said. His combination with fellow striker Serhiy Rebrov led the side to unimaginable heights. The tactical Shevchenko scored 60 goals in 117 games between 1994 and 1999, the speedy Rebrov 93 in 198 games from ’92-2000. The pair were at the heart of the Champions League runs and Ukraine’s first ever World Cup appearance in 2006.
For all of his past accomplishments and current hero worship, however, Shevchenko’s relationship with the Ukrainian public hasn’t always been smooth. Unlike Blokhin and Belanov, who played the bulk of their careers in Kyiv, Shevchenko spent most of his prime playing abroad for AC Milan and Chelsea.
“Ukrainians don’t know him quite as well because he wasn’t in our league,” said Kyiv native Andriy Gnibulsky through an interpreter.
The disconnect deepened in the midst of the Orange Revolution of 2004, when Shevchenko publicly endorsed current president Viktor Yanukovych instead of the ultimately victorious combination of Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko. Public backlash was fierce, and the wounds cut Shevchenko deep.
Even two years later, in the Observer article, the frustration was palpable: “’The people in Ukraine deserve democracy,’ he says. Then, with anger: ‘It’s bullshit. A big load of bullshit. Listen, politics is a shitty world. I want to stay well away from it, and well away from newspapers and TV stations that are standing up for one candidate or another. I’m an athlete.’”
Time has lessened the tension. Bekeshkina even said that Shevchenko has the potential and popularity to follow in the footsteps of heavyweight boxer and fellow national icon Vitali Klitschko, who “created his own party. Nobody knows about the program of his party, about the people in his party, but about 10 percent are ready to vote for Klitschko’s party.”
For now, Shevchenko’s role is much simpler. Euro 2012 opened up Ukraine to the world and vice versa, breaking long-standing misconceptions. Before the tournament, Ukraine was a mystery, but, as Frankov succinctly put it, “after the Euro, now Ukraine is a country.”
Shevchenko’s lasting legacy in Ukraine will be the way that he presented his country to the world in uncertain times. Every goal, every international accolade, provided a spotlight on his homeland. He put a face to what was previously, for many, just a name on the map.
“I represent Ukraine to the world,” he told The New York Times before Euro 2012. “I have my own mission.”
Thanks to his successes and that of his country as a co-host, the mission is accomplished. No matter what the future brings for the national team — whether it is a collapse in the wake of their icon’s retirement or a golden age that a talented young core hints at — Shevchenko’s legacy is secure. At a time when his countrymen were asking what it meant to be a Ukrainian, Andriy Shevchenko provided an answer.
Kyiv Post staff writer Matt Pentz can be reached at [email protected]
