Paolo Bandini
Reuters
Kurt Cobain was still alive when Oleksandr Shovkovskiy made his senior debut for Dynamo Kyiv. The Sony Playstation did not exist yet, and nor did the TV show Friends. When the goalkeeper played his first Champions League game, a year later, Raheem Sterling had still not been born.
That is all a long-winded way of saying the same thing: namely that Shovkovskiy is rather old. Forty-one years, one month and 22 days, to be precise. Even before Wednesday’s encounter with Manchester City, he was already the third-oldest player ever to compete in the Champions League.
And yet, still one of the more reliable ones. It was the consistency of Shovkovskiy, and the defence that he helps to marshal, that delivered Kyiv through to the knockout stages of this season’s Champions League. The Ukrainian champion kept four clean sheets in six group games – shutting out even Chelsea at home and, perhaps even more impressively, also Porto on the road.
Shovkovskiy intended to keep another on Wednesday. “My feeling is that we can stand up to City and advance further,” he said during an interview with Uefa.com. That Kyiv had made it the No. 1 priority to avoid conceding any goals was made clear from the first minute, which the Ukrainian side devoted entirely to rolling the ball back and forth in its own half.
City, though, would obliterate that plan in a first-half that could hardly have gone any better. Sergio Aguero needed just 15 minutes to do what Diego Costa, Willian and Eden Hazard had failed to do in 90 at the Olimpiyskiy National Sports Complex last October – sticking the ball past Shovkovskiy and into the net.
The striker had been favoured by some poor marking, Andriy Yarmolenko caught ball-watching at a corner. But to focus solely on this would be to do a disservice the cleverness of Aguero’s movement – perceiving before anybody else did where Yaya Toure’s eventual knockdown was most likely to fall. And that is not to mention the perfect weighting on his first touch, nor the coolness of his finish.
By half-time the advantage was double, Aguero even more impressive this time as he ran in behind the defence before releasing Sterling with a backheel. A low whipped cross from the Englishman was easily slotted home by David Silva on the far side of the six-yard box. Shovkovskiy, who had made one solid save from Toure between the two goals, was this time left with no chance.
You might have said the same for his team at this point, but Kyiv rallied impressively after half-time. Vitaliy Buyalsky dragged a goal back on a shot that deflected off Nicolas Otamendi, and, with a little more luck, his side could subsequently have leveled. Yarmolenko missed an easy pass to Moraes which would have given his team-mate an open goal to aim at, before Joe Hart made a fingertip stop from Buyalsky.
Instead, Toure restored City’s two-goal advantage at the death, curling a left-footed shot into the far corner from the edge of the box. Just like that, the tie was effectively done.
Related – VIDEO: Yaya Toure’s stunner gives City commanding advantage heading into 2nd leg
Only a catastrophic collapse could now keep City from its first-ever appearance in the quarter-finals of this competition. But we should not let that reality trick us into believing that such an emphatic first-leg win was, in itself, always inevitable.
City was the clear favourite to progress, and rightly so. But it was hardly a given that Pellegrini’s side would win in Ukraine, let alone do so by scoring half as many goals in one evening as their opponents had conceded in 16 league matches this season. Only two other English teams had ever beaten Kyiv on their own turf in 13 attempts across all European competitions.
That City did so by such a margin suggests Manuel Pellegrini’s team have rediscovered a little of the verve that had gone missing in recent weeks. The simple fact of having Aguero back in form is enough to raise the club’s prospects significantly. His goal here was the 16th that he has scored his last 17 Champions League starts.
(Courtesy: Sky Sports)
The confidence with which he took it was in stark contrast to the uncertainty that has clung to this team. Perhaps it was even his example that inspired Toure, so deeply underwhelming in defeats at home to Leicester and Tottenham, to have faith in his own ability to take on such an outrageous shot at the end.
Either way, this was a victory to restore at least a measure of belief that Manuel Pellegrini’s tenure could yet end on an optimistic note. The Champions League final remains a distant dream, but for once it is one that will endure beyond the end of winter.
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