RAGE AGAINST

Shevchenko rages against the dying light.

[Sport.Scotsman.com] Amidst more joyous celebration at Hampden yesterday, an unwelcome first occurred for Scotland. A home backline in which David Weir partnered Stephen McManus conceded a goal from open play. It just had to up Ukraine and just had to be the - supposedly - washed-up great that is Andriy Shevchenko who ended a great run of defensive consistency, a sequence founded on the security provided by a straight-up-and-down duo whose previous five outings together had seen their team ship only three goals. Ahead of yesterday, Ukraine's Olexandr Kucher had been the last man to find a way through Scotland without the aid of a set-piece. Since that goal in Kiev 369 days ago, only two Andreas Pirlo free-kicks for Italy in March and the penalty Salius Mikolinukas' dive earned for Lithuania last month had beaten Craig Gordon. But, whatever his problems with Chelsea, there seems to be something about Scottish opposition that allows Shevchenko to find his spark. Even as his team fell two goals behind in the opening ten minutes and his frustrations fizzed up in snarling and growling at team-mates and a pull on Scott Brown that earned him a 15th-minute booking, there were glimpses of the sleekness and innate goal sense that account for only Gerd Müller being in front of him in the all-time list of scorers in European club competition.

In between Kenny Miller and Lee McCulloch's strikes, Ukraine's captain served notice that a Scotland back four of Weir, McManus, Alan Hutton and Gary Naysmith would not experience a quiet afternoon in their first outing as a unit. The striker glided past Naysmith and McManus as if they simply didn't exist before cutting inside and letting fly with a rising effort that did not climb more than couple of inches over Gordon's crossbar.

With Oleksandr Hladkiy and Andriy Voronin drifting wide in order to stretch Scotland at the back and create space through the middle, a spring seemed to develop in Shevchenko's step after his early sighter. Perhaps there was a determination from the old stager to rage against the dying of the light where Ukraine's bleak prospects in Euro 2008 were concerned - and in so doing reaffirm his importance to a country wherein some had dared utter the sacrilege that Shakhtar Donetsk's £3.5m youngster Hladkiy and Liverpool's Voronin should be tried out as a strikeforce. And maybe he also recognised the vulnerabilities in the home side's rearguard. He certainly exploited uncertainty from Naysmith to reduce the deficit to 2-1 midway through the opening period. Jostling with Shevchenko, the full-back seemed to fall into a cross from the left that was flicked on by Andriy Vorobei and merely allowed the Chelsea man to seize on the loose ball and ram it high into the net.

From that point on in the first half, Alex McLeish's side struggled to contain him. On separate occasions he left both Weir and McManus for dead and might have had a reasonable claim for a penalty after Naysmith clattered into him as he sliced his way towards the six-yard box. The second half belonged to those times and the places when such national football history was made. It took Scotland's defence all of ten minutes to regroup, rediscover the poise that had made them an impenetrable barrier for France. Weir held the line and directed his team-mates into areas that would smother the yellow shirts who began to drop deeper and further from dangerous areas, even before James McFadden made their cause a hopeless one with Scotland's third goal 14 minutes from time.