Schembri aims to stump Scots like he did Pirlo
WHEN Andrea Pirlo was asked to name his toughest opponent, you would have got long odds on guessing his answer. Instead of picking a fellow global superstar, he said Malta international Andre Schembri was as tough as it got for him. And the Boavista midfielder is aiming to frustrate Scotland, too, today.
Scotland kick off their World Cup campaign in Malta this evening with a match against the Mediterranean minnows and anything less than three points will be viewed as a disaster for Gordan Strachan’s side.
But the Maltese — who drew 1-1 this week in Estonia in their final warm-up match before playing Scotland — are a tough nut to crack. Italy and Croatia only defeated them by one-goal margins in the last couple of years, but Schembri made a huge impression on Pirlo in a World Cup qualifier in Modena in 2012.
So much so that Pirlo dedicated almost an entire chapter of his autobiography to his encounter against Schembri, who he described as the toughest and most frustrating player he’d ever faced.
It came as a surprise to Schembri, who had no idea he had the honour of being in his book until it was pointed out to him. And he revealed what happened when he met up again with the Italian.
Schembri said: ‘Yes, we’re big friends! The game was in Modena in September 2012. I was marking him, which is what our coach told me to do. I don’t think I was more than five metres away from him the full match.
‘During the game, he didn’t speak to me, but he was speaking to the Italian defenders, saying to them: “Don’t give me the ball, this d***head is with me all the time”. I understand Italian, so I knew exactly what he was saying!
‘And you could see their defenders were surprised because normally the first thing they do when they get the ball is look for Pirlo. But our idea was to stop him dictating the game. So they were a bit mixed up.
‘After the game, he came to me and said: “Why did you play like that?” I said: “My coach gave me instructions, I had to follow them or I won’t play in the team”. But we swapped shirts, so he didn’t feel too bad about things. ‘I don’t swap shirts usually because my national jerseys mean a lot to me but I have a friend who is a big Juventus fan and I knew he would be thrilled to get it. ‘In Malta, all the fans have either an Italian club or an English one. So that was the main reason I swapped — it wasn’t for me. ‘But we played against one another three years later in Florence and when he saw me he gave me a little smile like: “Oh no, you again”. ‘I didn’t know anything about being mentioned in his autobiography until our media officer called me and he said: “Pirlo mentioned you in his book”. Then I read the English version and I read the lines about him saying I was so close he thought I wanted to marry him. I got married during the summer, so I’m taken!’ Schembri is one of three generations of his family who have played for Malta and the 30-year-old has 72 caps for his country. During most of that time, it’s been a huge struggle for Malta, which has led to them being behind the likes of the Maldives, the Cook Islands and Guam in the FIFA world rankings. But they have taken confidence from the rise of the smaller nations at this summer’s Euros and are confident they can stun Scotland tonight. He said: ‘The Scotland game is really big for us. It would be important for us if we got a good start in the group. ‘We have a lot of players who are not professionals — they have jobs during the day then they come to training. So getting a performance and a result would be a boost for us. ‘It won’t be easy because we know the Scottish team is strong, but we’re not going into the game to defend, we’re going there to win it, or maybe get a point. ‘It would help us in the group if we got a good start but every game will be difficult. ‘We know Strachan will have Scotland prepared. It will be a tough game for us to start the group but if we were to get something it would set us up for the second game at Wembley.’