Andriy Shevchenko News Archives

Apparently, these clubs have (or have had) players with the most Champions League semifinal appearances.

Before you go through the list, try guessing who’d be on this list. Several Italians, of course, which is where Juve / Milan come in, and then there is the Madrid - Chelsea connection (bonus points if you can think of the 2nd player before peeking at the list), and there’s a record-breaking Champions League winner and a couple of underachieving continental strikers to round off the list.

Here’s the list:

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Andriy Schevchenko has been a great player by anyone’s reckoning. Nearly 200 goals in just under 400 league appearances at Dinamo Kiev, Milan and Chelsea.

He was European footballer of the year in 2004 and has been in the top ten on five other occasions. Six times he has been in the top ten of FIFA World footballer of the year. On three occasions he has been the top scorer in the Champions League tournament. 36 goals in 79 International appearances for Ukraine is also an impressive record.

At 31 years old he should still be near the top of his game. So whilst his old teammates prepare to take on Arsenal at the San Siro and his current team look to progress against Olympiakos in the Champions League, where do we find Andriy?

Well the answer was hidden in the back pages of the sports papers this morning. Griffin Park, Brentford.

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“Soccer is a world made of numbers”. A phrase which would make any mathematician proud, with the eternal claim that you can find mathematics anywhere.

And where better to find numbers than Goal Totals: the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS), the famous (and often criticized) organization that chronicles the history of football, has just published its World’s Top Goal Scorer of 2007 ranking.

No, the results are further from probably anything you may expect.

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Carling Cup holders Chelsea will be looking to advance to a second consecutive final and third in four years when they take on Everton in the Carling Cup semifinals next month.

Chelsea took home the cup in 2005 and 2007 under Jose Mourinho, and they’re looking to get Avram Grant his first trophy as the Blues’ touchline technician.

On the other side, the trophy case is a little lonely. Everton are looking to advance to their first League Cup final since 1984 (1-0 defeat to Liverpool in a replay) and their first final of any kind since the 1995 FA Cup final, in which they defeated Manchester United 1-0.

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He is often described as a £30 million Ukrainian tosspot and one of the most ridiculous foreign failures in the English Premier League. And now his stint with English football is drawing to a final curtain. Andriy Shevchenko might be one of the best strikers of his generation, the best ever footballer to have merged out of Ukraine and a UEFA Champions League winner with AC Milan but all those past laurels cannot deny the fact that Sheva is past his prime.

And this is the precise reason why Chelsea are ready to off-load him to virtually anywhere and spare themselves the blushes of feeding a constantly failing player in their team. Sheva might be one of Romam Abramovich’s best buddies but once upon a time so too was the ex-Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. Now where is he?

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Yes, I’ve said it before: it’s ‘Top 100 Ranking’ time. Fresh from publishing their Top 100 footballers list last month, English magazine FourFourTwo just released their a list of the Richest players and club owners of the English Premiership, sort of a “2007’s Billionaire’s club” if you will. As the editors eloquently put it, the key message of this year is that “British football is getting richer, and the rich are getting richer“.

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It’s that time of the year again. The time when a random (ok, let’s call it ‘well-respected’ if you prefer) football publication makes an “All Time Best” ranking that never fails to create controversy and offend a few people.

FourFourTwo did one of those last month, this time it’s the turn of the ‘Association of Football Statisticians’ to make its Top 100, after studying every fact and figure from the beautiful game over the past 100 years.

Points are given for goals scored by forwards and clean sheets for defenders. Players also get awarded marks for trophies won, captaincy and the level they played at throughout their career.

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Shevchenko, Podolski, Crouch, Chevantón, Riquelme: these are just a few of the quality players which have been reduced to a benchwarming role in their clubs, as the new season continues. It wouldn’t be surprising to see some of them decide it’s time for a change, and travel to greener pastures during the January transfer window.

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I’m a die-hard Chelsea fan I have been destroyed by the loss of both the Premiership title and (again) the lack of a champions league trophy to add to the trophy cabinet. But I’m far from blaming this on Mourinho. I think I speak for every Chelsea fan when I say he is the ONLY manager for the job. But i believe that Chelsea have to make some serious changes to the playing staff.

I am getting worried about all the speculation about Lamps and Terry leaving because without them I believe that Chelsea would only be scraping a UEFA cup spot. Even if their contracts are tied up in the next few weeks we need to make changes.

Here is a starting line-up that i believe that would win Chelsea the league back and would finally win us that highly coveted Champions League trophy:

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Among other interesting news, is this one from Shevchenko, who adds his two cents (or 30 million pounds?) to the, now ever so tiring, debate on great players.

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You’ve probably seen it a 100 times by now but if you hadn’t, here’s a quick peek at Shevchenko’s miss against Blackburn on Sunday.

Sheva miss

Now, the thing that was really interesting in this one was not that Shevchenko missed a sitter (he did, but that was a combination of over-eagerness and lack of concentration) but how he went about redeeming himself afterwards.

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Andriy Shevchenko is back in the business of scoring goals - and like Rooney, it is perfect timing for the Ukrainian hitman to start firing.

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The Abramovich-Shevchenko-Mourinho love triangle may be what seems to have brought Chelsea’s dominance of the Premier League to a temporary halt this season, but it could be argued that the “Special One’s� evil plans were undone by something altogether different.

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We’ve pussy-footed around the issue, confused by Chelsea’s strong showing in the Champions League and their ability to leave 18 other Premiership teams behind them biting dust.

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One day they’re quoting Shevchenko as saying that he’s prepared to leave Chelsea, the next day Chelsea deny these claims saying that Sheva has been misquoted in a Russian rag.

What’s going on?

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And there you have it.

We’ve been talking about it for two years. Mourinho wants Shevchenko, Mourinho wants Shevchenko.

Well now the bloody bastard has got him.

I don’t know if anyone has thought about it yet, but it says a helluva lot about the English Premier League that we’ve got two of the world’s best players moving to the EPL this summer.

Want the ‘transfer’ details? Here we go:

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