I turn around and fans say ‘Oh, it’s not Kevin’
I’m more beautiful than him, definitely
REPORTS MANCHESTER CITY’S Oleksandr Zinchenko says there is a downside to playing with Kevin De Bruyne – he gets mistaken for the Belgian star.
Among the exotic and expensive array of talent City will parade at Wembley tomorrow, Zinchenko will be the least known – and certainly the cheapest buy.
But the Ukraine utility player’s uncanny likeness in looks and stature to player-ofthe-season-elect De Bruyne means he still gets plenty of unintended attention.
“Everyone calls me Kev,” he said. “I hear it all the time. When I’m getting on the team bus, the fans are shouting ‘Kev, can I have a picture?’. Then I turn round and they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s not Kevin’.
“From afar maybe we look like twins, but when we are together I don’t think so. I am more beautiful than him, definitely! Will I collect his awards for him? Yeah, maybe.”
Personal recognition is not important to Zinchenko. His main focus is to help City deliver their first trophy under Pep Guardiola’s command by beating Arsenal.
Benjamin Mendy’s injury, Fabian Delph’s suspension and Danilo’s defensive vulnerability means he is set to get the nod at left-back even though he arrived as a wide midfielder from Russian Premier League club FC Ufa in a £1.7million deal during Guardiola’s first summer at the Etihad.
He has made only eight senior starts but neither his relative inexperience nor the size of the occasion will faze a 21-year-old who has already played in four countries and who fled Donetsk with his parents for Moscow just days before civil war broke out in Ukraine back in 2013.
“I am ready to play,” he said. “I don’t like it when people talk about my age. I am 21. The Brazilian Ronaldo was already one of the best players in the world when he was 20. Pele was 17 when he won the World Cup for the first time. There are lots of examples.
“So I don’t like it when somebody says, ‘Oh, he’s too young, don’t worry, everything is in the future for him’. At 21, you already have to show your quality.”
Monday’s shock FA Cup defeat at Wigan wrecked City’s quadruple dream and Zinchenko admits it has placed even greater emphasis on winning at Wembley.
“City are the best team in the world at the moment but we have to do our talking on the pitch in every single game,” he said. “We need to win trophies. Everyone was sad after Wigan because we wanted to win everything this season. But we just have to forget it. It’s not easy but in training you can see everyone has had full focus on the next game.”
Zinchenko has had to grow up in a hurry. Only 16 when he moved to Moscow with his parents when civil war erupted in Ukraine, he found himself without a club because he was still contracted to Shakhtar Donetsk as a youth player.
He went 18 months without playing a competitive game and for a while trained alone on the streets of Moscow until Donetsk agreed to sell him to FC Ufa, where he spent two seasons before City signed him and immediately loaned him to PSV Eindhoven,
That may have been a good learning experience for his playing career but he was in for a shock when it comes to Holland’s liberal culture.
“In Holland, everyone can sauna together – both women and men – and everyone is naked,” he said. “It’s strange when you see a son, his mum, his grandmother and grandfather, all together naked.
“In Ukraine and Russia it’s not possible. For us, it’s very, very strange. And because of the way I look, people think that I’m from Holland or Sweden!”
Zinchenko has had no problems adapting to life at City and feels no inferiority complex around his superstar teammates. After all, he already has one big claim to fame: he has taken Andriy Shevchenko’s record as Ukraine’s youngest international goalscorer. And he is already planning for a career as a coach after his playing career is over by absorbing every bit of knowledge imparted by Guardiola. “He is the best trainer in the world and I try to absorb every single bit of advice from him,”