the orange revolution, a redux

Last year's footballing narrative, if you'll hark back for a second, got punctuated pretty properly in retrospect. Man U and Zenit's triumphs summated two of the campaign's glossiest discoveries; the emergences of both Ronaldo as the Prodigal Son and Russia, led by Arshavin, as a free-wheeling corps to be ordained and respected in football's loftier tiers. The results this week, however acrimonious, gave us the CL final best truncating the daze that's been 08/09, a result well documented here. But what of the final UEFA Cup final? Who is this Shakhtar Donetsk, and why is Joe Strummer writing songs about them (the inspiration for this piece, but why does the tune live introduce itself as Dream On's fraternal twin)?

Well, for one, it's definitely something that the year most posterior to Russia's arrival has the potential to include the retribution of a people perhaps most aggrieved by the former Union's pestilence of last century. Quick history checkup: the city of Donetsk, a Holodomor survivor, was for years previous known by the brilliant Stalino; the Germans then got theirs through destruction of the city by Barbarossa and thereafter homing a concentration camp there during the war. Shakhtar, or "miner" from Slavic origins (how proletarian), played in the Soviet League without a title until the Ukraine went indie in '91; they've now won four of last eight Ukrainian league titles and have been resident participants in the CL for a near decade, though never advancing beyond the group stages, this year included.


This Shakhtar side appears to be amongst the year's most charismatic and tactfully built. The obvious is the Brazilian quartet up front, an idea so simple it becomes lost in the tactical overanalyses prevalent around the game today--namely, get enough talented and under-appreciated samba specialists and let them roam free at the bow of your ship. Like Milan, without the narcissism. The not-so-obvious is where the side's thesis lies, an oft-auxiliary spot harmonized instead into the ignition of the Carnival's fire. There's a lot of much-lauded-about right backs out there, but for all Dani Alves and Maicon and Sagna do, they don't do anywhere near as much for their side as Darijo Srna does for his.

He's the captain, yes, but it's so much more than that. It's even beyond him usurping four Brazilians for permanent dead-ball-taking duty; it's that any and every and all attacking thoughts passing through the side's combined mind are to be first given a stamp of approval by Darijo. That's not even hyperbole. If Dani Alves is a swashbuckler (as so eloquently dubbed by Derek Rae), then Srna, a man bred through war, is the smiling Scout Sniper, complete with a bayonet attached to his rifle. But as stated earlier, Alves shines within Barcelona's system plus has Messi galavanting beside him, whereas Srna has essentially become the system itself; I'll be damned if there was a chance or even a buildup in their game yesterday that didn't in some way involve Srna dictating the direction the attack was to be headed, be it through instigation or redirection. It even looked as though he's somewhere around three-quarters way through the Delap School Of Throwing training program, further support in his own personal quest to extend the term "all-action" outside the midfield.


For whatever reason, Shakhtar and Srna have managed to make what seems to be a rather limiting idea, this emphasis on dextrality, not only competent but virtuous and content in being led however far the captain (and, to a lesser extent, his fantastic right flanking mate Ilsinho) wishes to take it. Why teams are incapable of eliminating the starboard space Srna calls home against them is for both another day and Bremen to figure out. I'd rather feel privileged to bask in the defiant glow and focus on how fitting it is that their date with destiny pits he and his halloween clad-side against a German side stripped of their attacking savant, left ripe and bleeding to the jaws of Ukrainian redemption. And really, who doesn't love a nice set of turned tables?