For hire: Arshavin the silent assassin

Quietly confident: Russia's talisman Andriy Arshavin shuns the limelight and lets his feet do the talking

13 April 2012

Would the real Andriy Arshavin please stand up? The world's media descended on Basle to try to put a bit of flesh on the mystery rosy-cheeked conjuror who has made football gasp but we all ended up none the wiser.

With a disappearing act here almost as magical as the way he ghosted past Dutch defenders, he glided past the microphoned throng like Russia's answer to Paul Scholes.

Arshavin may have become the talk of the tournament but ever since transforming himself from the cognoscente's choice to the must-have decoration for every major Premier League, La Liga or Serie A fat cat, he has looked about as comfy in the spotlight as dear old Scholesy in a photo shoot for Hello! magazine.

When the dreaded moment arrived for him after the Russians' training session, he tried to sidestep the corridor which would take him past hundreds of reporters until the team's press officer forced him to face the music.

So, head down, he just scarpered past everyone, uttering one monosyllabic negative response to the one woman reporter who managed to divert his gaze before scuttling onto the sanctuary of the team bus. Mission accomplished. Silently.

Which all left his team-mates and coach Guus Hiddink - in six of the nine languages he speaks - having to do the talking for him as Arshavin prepares to bamboozle Spain in Thursday's semi-final just as he paralysed Holland with his breathtaking coming out party on Saturday. With his admirers' help and translated oddities from his personal website, we can at least safely offer the following useless pen pic.

One, Euro 2008's most wanted footballer had a bad experience at the dentist's when he was five and wouldn't go back for 15 years. Two, he liked picking mushrooms as a kid. Three, he got kicked out of school for being naughty and got transferred to one near his mum's work so she could check up on him. Four, he has a college diploma in fashion designing after completing a dissertation entitled "The Development of the Sportswear production process", although he only ever wanted to go there because he thought there'd be lots of girls around. And five, he's dead quiet.

Actually, make that six since we also know he wants to leave his 50-grand a week job at Zenit St Petersburg. A Spanish newspaper yesterday quoted Arshavin as saying he wanted to move to La Liga, which is bad news for a host of Premier League clubs.

Arsenal are one of the clubs linked with Arshavin, and their manager Arsene Wenger said: "Arshavin showed in the game against Holland how good he is.

"I was wondering whether Guus Hiddink was going to bring him in after he was suspended for the first two group games because the team had won but the fact you bring him in when the team's doing so well means he's exceptional - and he has shown that now."

Arshavin's team- mate Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, asked whether a certain Chelsea zillionaire would be interested, laughed: "Not just Abramovich. Everyone's interested in Arshavin! Now maybe all the big sides will want him. He can choose! He's relaxed, doesn't say too much but he's a leader and when he speaks, people listen."

Perhaps, reckoned Hiddink, we should all have known about him since the 27-year-old's superb performances against England in qualifying and in last month's UEFA Cup Final were hardly state secrets and neither was the fact he's been rated among the top two Russian players for at least six years.

"The world of football was either not interested or the Russian world wasn't exposing itself well enough," Hiddink told me yesterday.

It's time for catch up.

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David Jones (Footballer)

For hire: Arshavin the silent assassin

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