by engireman » Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:09 am
Нэг ийм юм аварга болох хувь муутай Креспо-гийн тухай бичсэн байна.
Hernán Crespo believes in destiny. Ask him about the cruelest night of his career, when Liverpool staged arguably the greatest comeback in soccer history to take the 2005 Champions League crown from AC Milan, and Crespo has no doubt about what decided the game.
"It was destiny," he says. "Destiny did not want us to win that cup."
Milan was up 3-0 at halftime in a match it would dominate for 113 of the 120 minutes played. But in those other seven minutes, between the 54th and 60th, Rafa Benítez's men scored three goals to level the match. And in extra time, Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek contorted his body into an impossible position to deny what would have been Andriy Shevchenko's winner for Milan.
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"When you see something like that, with Shevchenko getting the ball one meter from the goal line and his shot smacking against the goalkeeper's body -- in those situations you can't win," says Crespo. Liverpool went on to take its fifth European Cup on penalty kicks.
Milan was dealt a crushing psychological blow. "If you lose a game like that, it's very difficult to get past it," Crespo says, his voice quivering even now, 18 months later. "It was a terrible pain to endure."
In a way, that night in Istanbul reflected Crespo's entire career. He has enjoyed comparatively few highs -- two Argentine Apertura titles and a Copa Libertadores when he was a kid at River Plate; a Coppa Italia and a UEFA Cup at Parma; and a Premiership crown last season at Chelsea -- and even fewer unquestioned setbacks, the most notable being the 2002 World Cup, at which Argentina coach Marcelo Bielsa put his eggs in Gabriel Batistuta's basket and limited Crespo to 71 minutes as Argentina suffered a humiliating first-round exit. The rest of the time Crespo has been at the whim of destiny, which has brutally served up a string of near-misses.
He was the top scorer at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, leading Argentina's charge to the final, where it held a 2-1 lead with 16 minutes to go before Nigeria mounted an improbable comeback to snatch the gold medal.
Success seemed just as certain four years later when Crespo joined the Italian champions, Lazio -- a powerhouse club that featured Juan Sebastián Verón, Alessandro Nesta, Pavel Nedved, Diego Simeone and Marcelo Salas, Galácticos before Florentino Pérez co-opted the term. Crespo did his part, notching 26 goals to lead the league, but coach Sven-Göran Eriksson walked out in midseason to become England's manager, and Lazio, in disarray, slid to a third-place finish.
A year later Crespo moved to Inter, where he was asked to fill Ronaldo's big shoes. Again, destiny showed no mercy. Crespo scored eight goals in his first six Champions League games, but he was injured and missed three crucial months. By the time he was fit again, Inter's title hopes were dead and Crespo again had to settle for second place. But the worst blow came in the Champions League semifinal against crosstown rival AC Milan. Both legs ended in draws -- 0-0 and 1-1 -- but, even though the two clubs share the same stadium, fate decreed that Inter was the home side in the second leg, and the pitiless away-goals rule did the rest.
When Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, sparing no expense to turn Chelsea overnight into an international juggernaut, called on Crespo, destiny was waiting in the shadows. It decreed that Chelsea's main rival, Arsenal, would become the first team in 109 years to go undefeated for an entire English season, leaving Crespo -- again -- to taste second place.
Fate was even more perfidious in the Champions League, in which Chelsea faced Monaco in the semifinals. With a tie score and a man advantage early in the second half, Claudio Ranieri, the Blues' normally conservative boss, made several aggressive (some would say incomprehensible) substitutions. Monaco, short-handed, won 3-1. Later Ranieri would say that insecurity over his job -- he had seen José Mourinho, who would succeed him at Chelsea, in the company of club officials -- had prompted him to take the biggest gamble of his life. Regardless, once again events beyond Crespo's control had conspired against him.
He moved to Milan on loan the following season, but his fortunes did not change. The Rossoneri finished -- what else? -- second in the league, a result made all the more galling by the fact that the winner, Juventus, was later stripped of the title amid match-fixing allegations. And, of course, the Champions League debacle in Istanbul followed at the end of the season.
Crespo finally won his first European league title last year at Chelsea, though some of the shine was taken off it by the fact that he constantly alternated with Didier Drogba up front. Germany 2006 was supposed to be Crespo's chance -- after finishing runner-up on six occasions in three competitions -- to finally put destiny in its place.
He scored three goals in leading Argentina to the quarterfinal against Germany, where it took a 1-0 lead. Eleven minutes from a place in the semifinals, Crespo made way for Julio Cruz. Less than 60 seconds later, Miroslav Klose equalized for the host nation. Crespo watched powerless from the bench as the match dragged on to penalty kicks and Argentina, perhaps the best team in the tournament, went out.
Now he is back at Inter, a club that has futilely chased a domestic title for the past 17 years while outspending every other team in the world. "It wasn't easy to go back," Crespo says, "but the club had faith in me, and I felt their confidence."
There is little question why Inter boss Roberto Mancini picked him up over the summer. Crespo is the type of striker coaches love, not just for his goals (among active players he is Serie A's third leading all-time scorer) but because he makes his teammates better. Ironically, for a man treated so poorly by destiny, he helps guide the destinies of others, making gaps and opportunities appear for them.
"His movement on the pitch is what sets him apart," says Ranieri. "He is exceptional at choosing the right angles, at creating space for teammates, at pulling defenders out of position. As a coach, you try to teach that kind of thing to all your strikers. But the truth is that some get it more than others. In that sense, Hernán is the master."
Such skills are why he has changed clubs for a combined total of about $170 million during his 14-year career. And why, to this day, his transfer to Lazio for $65 million remains the most expensive ever among forwards (and the second biggest in history, after Zinédine Zidane's move to Real Madrid in '01). Yet there is still the sense that Crespo is underappreciated, both at home and abroad. In Argentina that may be simply because he has been away for more than a decade. Absence doesn't necessarily make the heart grow fonder, not when Argentina continues to churn out stars year after year.
"It's normal that they speak better of those who are still in the country, because that sells papers and generates ratings on the radio," Crespo says. "I do feel appreciated in Argentina, but it's logical that there is a tendency to over-exalt someone [who plays] at home. But while many great players have left the country, just a few of us have had great careers in Europe."
Ranieri has his own opinion as to why Crespo remains underrated outside Argentina. "For a start, he's not a self-publicist, he doesn't seek the limelight," the manager says. "And the fact that he has moved so often certainly has not helped."
Indeed, Crespo's six moves in the past six seasons suggest that his bags are permanently packed. The irony is that most of the moves were outside his control. Whether they were due to financial meltdown (Lazio to Inter), managerial choice (Inter to Chelsea) or insufficient liquidity (Milan to Chelsea), it was something other than Crespo's own will that was busy shuttling him back and forth across Europe.
He would say it was destiny. The same destiny that caused him so much heartache. At 31, he has learned to live with it. He has no choice. But maybe that's not a bad thing. After everything it has put him through, destiny owes him one. Big time.
Forza Juve - We will back