Chelsea’s ‘army” is growing ! Yuri Zhirkov , the left-sided wing-back from CSKA Moscow finally made his move.
The 25 –year-old Russian international Yuri Zhirkov has signed for Chelsea a three-year contract after the London club agreed to pay 21m euro to CSKA Moscow.
“ Any footballer would be happy to sign a contract with Chelsea and at any time”, the Russian said. Zhirkov played 31 times for his country as he made his professional debut at FC Spartak Tambov on august 2001. He joined CSKA at the end of 2003 and was two times champion of the Russian League, three times winner of the Russian Cup and also won the UEFA Cup in 2005.
Yuri Zhirkov was also among the 30 nominees for last year’s European Footballer of the year award and was voted Russia’s Footballer of the year in 2008.
He is a left-sided player who is quick and energetic. He scored 15 goals in 139 appearances for CSKA.
Zhirkov made his international debut in the winter of 2005 in a match against Italy and was named in the UEFA Team of the Tournament at Euro 2008 when he reached the semifinals playing for his country.
So it looks like Chelsea got themselves a player with a lot of potential. The only problem he appears to have so far is finding a way to get over the language barrier. As he himself has said he did not take Roman Abramovich’s advice to learn English seriously and he may now have a communication problem.
“ Now I know I should have taken his advice more seriously, but back then ( may 2006) I did not think I would ever need it for my football career”, the Russian declared to Eurosport.
The 25-year-old has now joined a growing number of Russian players active in London along with Andrei Ashavin ( Arsenal ) and Roman Pavlyuchenko ( Tottenham Hotspur).
Player Factfile:
1983: Born on August 20 in Tambov, Russia
2001: Joins Spartak Tamborov and goes on to score 26 goals in 74 games.
2004: January - Joins CSKA Moscow.
March 7 - Makes his debut against Spartak Moscow in the Russian Super Cup with CSKA winning 3-1.
March 12 - Makes his first appearance in the Russian Championship against FC Moscow in a 0-0 draw.
April 3 - Scores his first goal for CSKA in a 3-3 draw against Zenit St Petersburg.
2005: February 9 - Makes his international debut for Russia against Italy.
May 18 - Scores as CSKA win the UEFA Cup final with a 3-1 victory against Sporting Lisbon in the Portuguese capital.
2006: December 6 - Scores a memorable goal against Hamburg in the Champions League.
2008: June 26 - Russia lose 3-0 to Spain in the semi-finals of Euro 2008 but Zhirkov comes to the fore after a strong performance in the tournament.
2009: July 6 - Chelsea agree fee with CSKA to sign Zhirkov.
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