Ukrainian national football team was holding the first match at European championship in the history of its independence and it is natural that I did not miss the chance to watch it with Ukrainian fans. There is a special box for journalists in the fan zone and watching football comfortably by the huge monitor is possible. It is newsworthy that during the match local TV channel “7th channel” chose me from the journalists who were sitting in the box for interview. At the beginning they started talking to me in English but then when they understood that I could speak Russian and I came from Tbilisi they became happy. They wondered my opinion about the city, their country, work conditions and so on. I started to share my impressions and introduced “World Sport” to Kharkiv.
An hour before the starting match, local DJ warmed up the fans, who were “warming up” with beer. Soon the stadium was over-crowded and I assured that Ukrainians can be dedicated fans.
Oleg Blokhin’s players were holding the start match at European championship and it goes without saying that they were focused only on victory. Andrey Sevchenko brought a historical three points to the hosts. The most distinguished players in this match were two high-class players of the contemporary football –Andrey Sevchenko and Zlatan Ibrahimovic and finally the competition between them ended up in favor of Ukrainian.
Sevchenko is not as young as Zlatan Ibrahimovic and 35-year-old “Sheva” proved that the class never goes away and he made critics and those people who were unsatisfied with his playing recently silent aftar scoring two goals by head. No matter what will happen now Shevchenko will stay in the history of Ukraine as the player who brought the first victory to the national team at European championship and as the first Ukrainian who scored double at this following tournament.
Shevchenko is loved in Ukraine very much and I heard about it very often, but on Monday I assured in everything. After the goals freedom squire of Kharkiv was close to destroy and when the forward was substituted, thousands of fans were shouting:”Sheva”, “Sheva”. By the way, the journalist of “Ria-Novost” was standing next to me told me about the current situation in the fan zone:” such dedicated fans never will be in Russia” and added:”there is not such high-class stadium in Russia as “Metalist” Kharkiv is”.
Lest return to Shevchenko, he was the hero in the match against Sweden. He has been suffering from injury for several years and that’s why he did not use to play for the most matches of “Dinamo” Kiev, because he was saving energy for European championship. The current tournament which is underway in Ukraine-Poland is supposedly the last tournament for his career. According to the age and the fact that “Sheva” is not as fast as he used to be, he used to play as back forward. But before the tournament Blokhin stated that Shevchenko would play as centre-forward at this tournament. As one of the Ukrainian football expert stated:”during the second goal Shevchenko run round Ibrahimovic in such way as child to the fir-tree”. It is not surprising that “Carlsberg” the main sponsor of the championship named Shevchenko as the player of the match and Davor Suker legendary bombardier of Croatia awarded Ukrainian with prize. After the match Shevchenko mentioned that he was 10-year younger – half year ago even could not imagine that I would play at European championship.
The match ended and the fan zone “exploded”. The fans of Ukrainian team were shouting:”Ukraine!, Ukraine!” in the loudest voice and it is newsworthy that while scoring at the special stage are fireworks, no one paid it attention whenIbrahimovic scored but after two goals of Shevchenko these fireworks attracted more attention. After the match, there was huge fire-work at Freedom Squire and Ukrainians standing on the roofs of the buses were celebrating victory with waving flags and signaling.
All this had a very interesting final and it must be mentioned. Going to home, in the underground train noticed one guy in Ukrainian t-short, it was seemed that he had drunk a lot of beer. He seemed to be a trouble-maker. The couple was sitting in the train and the girl asked this mentioned guy:”who won? his answer was said in a loud voice:”da kakaya vam raznica? (does it matter to you?) It goes without saying that there was no wish any more to ask anything to him…
Lasha Tabagari special correspondent of “World Sport” from Kharkiv
Author’s photos
