Harry Redknapp has managed some top talents in his career – but he was never given the opportunity to train one of the greatest.
Redknapp coached Tottenham, Southampton, Portsmouth and Bournemouth during his career and was the manager of top stars such as Gareth Bale, Luka Modric, Rio Ferdinand, Paolo Di Canio and Sol Campbell – although he also had a certain soft spot for Niko Kranjcar.
4
But while he was manager at West Ham, a certain young striker came through the door who left Redknapp speechless.
Shevchenko, then just a teenager, had just started his career at Dynamo Kyiv in 1994 and was given the chance to make an impression at the Hammers.
After two goals, Redknapp was keen to sign the Ukrainian, but could not justify the high transfer fee.
Speaking to Sky Sports, the legendary English manager was asked how close he was to signing Shevchenko for West Ham in 1994.
He replied: “What happened to me and Frank Lampard Senior, who was my assistant at the time?
“He knew a couple of guys, he was a boy from Canning Town, we got a call from a couple of guys.
“They were real guys from the East End who did a lot of business in Russia and Ukraine.
“And they said, ‘Look, we can get all the players’ – there were no foreign players here – ‘the best players to look at’.
4
4
“So they sent two players over and we arranged a game with Barnet’s reserves. Shevchenko scored two goals and we liked him, but he only cost about £1 million.”
“I remember talking to Frank afterwards and saying, ‘That’s too much money.’ He was only 17 or 18 years old.”
“We didn’t take him with us, but the guys called me a few years later and asked, ‘Is that Harry, the judge?’
“They always called me and scolded me for not taking him with me!”
And for good reason: Arry Shevchenko developed into one of the best strikers of his generation.
AC Milan finally took the Ukrainian’s gamble in 1999, paying Dynamo Kyiv a whopping £21.5 million for the striker – just over the £1 million that West Ham had initially considered five years earlier.
And the money was well spent for the Italian team, as he scored 29 goals in his debut season and a total of 173 goals in 296 appearances over seven years.
4
His goals led AC Milan to triumph in the Champions League in 2003 and to success in Serie A the following year, where he also won the Ballon d’Or.
Perhaps the best compliment would be the fact that Shevchenko would still tower over some of the greatest football legends.
While he could have called Marco Boogers and Iain Dowie his teammates, he ended up playing alongside Paolo Maldini, Clarence Seedorf and Andrea Pirlo, as well as many other talented stars.
And while he won the Champions League, West Ham suffered relegation from the Premier League.
But perhaps the wise Redknapp also had foresight for his age, because Shevchenko ultimately ended up in England when Chelsea broke the English transfer record and signed him for £30.8 million in 2006.
In what was hailed as a groundbreaking move for the Blues, Shevchenko never really settled in in London and struggled to score goals, managing just nine goals in two Premier League seasons.
This led to the once-great striker being deemed surplus to requirements by then-manager Luiz Felipe Scolari in 2008, and he eventually returned to AC Milan on loan after just two years at Stamford Bridge, before returning permanently to Dynamo Kyiv the following summer.
So maybe Harry was right all along.