Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo claims that Barcelona is interested in Shakhtar Donetsk right back defender and Croatian international Darijo Srna (27) and Shakhtar Donetsk central defender and Ukrainian international Dmytro Chygrynskiy (22 - picture).A Barcelona scout will be present at the World cup qualifier Croata-Ukraine on Saturday to watch both players in action.
Barcelona manager Josep Guardiola would like both players after having seen them play during the Champions League games against Shakhtar last year.
Srna, whose contract with Shakhtar expires in 2011, would be delighted about the possibility to join Barcelona but despite the promise of Shaktar president Rinat Akhmetov to let the Croatian player go if a big club shows interest (read more here), the player's agent Damir Stimac thinks a transfer will be difficult, also because of the high salary Srna receives in Ukraine.
Read more:
Shakhtar defender Chygrynskiy being monitored
Deal with Shakhtar Donetsk winger Willian
Shakhtar Donetsk right back Srna is an option
Iniestar Said,
@Anony
If we are aiming for factual accuracy on this blog:
I guess his name is transliterated from the Ukranian Cyrillic alphabet, so either neither "Chygrynskij" nor "Chrgynsky" is actually right.
The only "correct way to spell it is "Чигри́нський".
Wikipedia has his name as "Chyhrynskyi", and Shakhtar's official website says "Chygrynskyy".
Personally I like "Chigrinsky", much easier.
Wake up people, lecture over. ;)
Posted on 17 June 2009 at 07:01
Iniestar Said,
Turning from linguistics to football:
The thing with centre backs is you really have to see how they perform over the season, against different opposition. Take the CL final - everyone said before how good Vidic is, but after the final it seems he can only defend against high balls, corners and big centre forwards, not technically talented attackers. The truth is somewhere in between.
As for these guys, I haven't seen enough of them to comment if they would be good enough to cope with the technically superior players found in the Spanish league. Srna seems surplus to requirements though if Saltor's coming in. Any Ukrainian culers seen Chygrynskij game in game out this season?
Posted on 17 June 2009 at 07:08