Mick Hartley

Such a beautiful letter from Ukrainian football legend Andriy Shevchenko in today's Times – As we fight the battle of our lives, I feel an urge to write this thank-you letter to our beautiful game, for giving me such strength:

Tears have been soaking my motherland of Ukraine for months, with the sadness challenging our childhood lessons that a man never cries. But the ones that I am fighting right now, while writing this letter, are of a different kind.

These tears are made of another deep emotion, my love for our beautiful game. I write this thank-you note from the darkness and emptiness that would be total if it wasn’t for football, an older brother who gives you strength to keep going with your life, even after witnessing how fragile it is.

I am not the kind of person that easily expresses emotions. I do know very well that each of us goes to bed and wakes up with our own thoughts, problems and dilemmas. However, I feel the urge to write this love letter to the most beautiful thing in the world.

I will start by thanking those enthusiasts and geniuses who, more than 150 years ago, in English public schools, conceived and designed what would become a people’s game.

In those schools, they merged educational, collective and social values and put their soul into the game. A noble thought that football has followed ever since.

Because football is an ideal. A game that let us dream big, where we’re all equal, and where David often beats Goliath within those 90 minutes. A land without borders, John Lennon’s Imagine; and Bono’s One.

For real fans, it doesn’t matter if their club plays in Serie C, the Bundesliga, or the Premier League.

The same people who sleep in their team shirts and proudly wear their teams’ scarves to work.

Those who had wanted to change it have never smelled the grass of a playing field, have never really cheered on the terraces, and don’t know what a changing room or a hostile match away from home feels like.

They dream and live their passion, passing it on to their children, generation after generation. For these and a thousand other reasons, that selfish madness called the Super League was swept away in just two days. First and foremost, by the fury of the fans. From people who live football from morning till night. From people who go to sleep and wake up thinking: “When is the next game?”

Despite all their millions, these are poor people who cannot understand the true beauty and power of the game of football.

Luckily, the world stood united in defending football’s history and principles….

My dear football, with this little letter, I want to thank you for so many things that you have taught me and what you have given me! Thank you for the privilege of playing in the most beautiful stadiums in the world and the most outstanding competitions. Thank you for giving me the comrades and friends with whom I have lived and shared thousands of battles. Thank you for the great opponents from whom I learnt so much.

Thanks to the suffering and defeats — they made me stronger. Thank you also for the coaches, our father figures, who guided us to proper growth. Thanks for the cups and championships won, especially the ones in the Champions League.

And thanks for the joy of the goals; that one is immense like no other.

However, I offer you a special thank you for allowing me to represent my country, my beloved Ukraine. As the captain, I wore our blue and gold shirt at both the World Cup and the European Championship. Any word I could use to describe this feeling would never do it justice.

I was fortunate to have you and never lose you, to love you as deeply as I did the first day I met you on the suburban streets of my Kyiv. Today, even stronger than ever.

Thank you very much, my friend. I love you.

Finally, a big thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to each of you for being so kind and staying close to my people in these dark times. We are fighting the battle of our lives to defend our homes and country. Slava futbolu, Slava Ukrayini!