By Mike Woitalla
Here’s a few glimpses into the childhoods of players starring at the European Championship:
BASTIAN SCHWEINSTEIGER(Germany). The midfielder, who set up both goals in Germany’s 2-1 win over the Netherlands, hails from the Bavarian town of Kolbermoor — also the birthplace of former Bayern Munichstar and 1974 world champion Paul Breitner. Schweinsteiger joined Bayern Munich’s youth program at age 14.
“As I child, I thought I would be either a skier ora soccer player,” said Schweinsteiger, whose older brother, Tobias, was a three-time youth national runner-up in skiing and later played third division soccer. “When I gotthe offer from Bayern I had to make quick decision.”
He told GQ.com, “I thought, first of all, you don’t freeze as much. And second of all, you don’t need to carryaround so much equipment or get up so early in the morning.”
Schweinsteiger debuted for Bayern Munich’s first team at age 18 in a Champions League game in 2002 and earned hisfirst cap for Germany at age 19.
ANDRES INIESTA (Spain). The midfielder who scored the winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final grew up in the small town of Fuentealbillanear Albacete and at age 12 moved 260 miles northeast to join Barcelona.
“Iniesta was a sensitive, considerate boy — shy but always willing to help others,” saidAlbert Benaiges, the coordinator of Barcelona’s youth teams.
Iniesta suffered from severe homesickness and his parents visited as often as possible.
“He wasvery close to his family and every goodbye each weekend would become a mini-drama,” Benaiges
Iniesta said hisdreams of reaching the big stage kept him motivated while he lived at La Masia.
“You would look out and there was the Nou Camp stadium opposite,” he said. “It was alwayson your mind, that the goal was to play there.”
ANDRIY SHEVCHENKO (Ukraine). Already a Ukraine legend, the 35-year-old scored both goals in the host nation’s 2-1comeback win over Sweden.
Shevchenko was born 60 miles north of Kiev in the village of Dvirkivshchyna when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. His mother was a kindergartenteacher and his father served as a captain in a Red Army tank regiment.
At age 9, in 1986, because of the nuclear disaster in nearby Chernobyl, he was evacuated with his schoolmates tothe Sea of Azov.
“We kind of knew what happened,”
Four weeks before the Chernobyl meltdown he had signed with youth program of Dynamo Kiev, which he joined after spending the summer at the sea, even though asoccer career wasn’t the first choice his father, Nikolaj, imagined for his son.
“My parents left the choice to me, they never said, ‘Do this, do that.’ They saidit’s best you choose,” said Andriy.
(MikeWoitalla, the executive editor of Soccer America, coaches youth soccer for Bay Oaks/East Bay United SC in Oakland, Calif. He is the co-author, with Tim Mulqueen, of