Rat: Chivu’s composure and Mkhitaryan’s discipline

Razvan Rat sees two figures from his own career come together in the meeting between Inter and Shakhtar: Cristian Chivu, with whom he spent ten years in the Romania team, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, his team-mate for three seasons in Donetsk. In an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy’s leading sports daily, the former defender, now on Genoa’s board of directors, offers a portrait of the two Inter men shaped by daily contact, both on the pitch and at training camps.

His assessment of the coach goes back a long way: Rat says he could already see Chivu’s managerial qualities during his playing days. He highlights his discipline and intelligence, but above all his ability to read the game quickly and decide how to respond. Alongside that respect for his footballing ability is a friendship nurtured off the pitch too, through dinners together during their years with the national team.

Razvan Rat, interview with Gazzetta dello Sport «We played together for 10 years: of the two of us, he was the calm one, I was the more hot-headed one».

His memories of Mkhitaryan, meanwhile, centre on the habits that accompanied his training. The Armenian lived at Shakhtar’s training ground, a complex that also had a cinema, laundry facilities and round-the-clock catering. According to Rat, he felt no need to move into the city centre: he already had everything he needed. His day began at eight in the morning and ended with lights out at ten at night, an attention to recovery that also made an impression on his team-mate in the room next door.

«The most professional footballer I have ever seen. […] He taught me the importance of rest, because we had rooms next to each other at training camps».

It was in Donetsk, under Mircea Lucescu, that the midfielder took a decisive step in his development: the profile published by Inter when he joined recalls his 29 goals in the 2012/13 season. Rat will be at San Siro for the match, torn between his Ukrainian past and his bond with Chivu: he said he would not know who to cheer for. He did, however, identify Genoa as the focus of his life today.