As Zico´s assistant coach, one of my tasks is observing our opponents, a spy work to be clearer. Because of it I traveled from Moscow to Birmingham, in England, to watch an Aston Villa match - in its imposing and magnificent stadium. The English team will be Zico´s first official game as CSKA coach. The stadium is a QUEEN´S JEWEL, by the way.

A curious fact happened and it could turn my planning in a failure. The British elegance is quite famous and I was taking care of all details to not make any mistakes. I was trying to avoid unpleasant experiences. But I wasn´t lucky enough.

Aston Villa´s match was going to begin at 3 p.m. and, just before go to the stadium, I had another commitment: visit hotel facilities where CSKA staff and squad would arrive four days before the Uefa Cup game. In fact, a sports complex that was perfect to our goals.

The only was the period of time between visiting the facilities and going to the stadium, that it is 30 km away. A 40 minutes trip at least. I´m going to add some suspense, Hitchcock style, and say the responsible for the facilities visitation advised that he was going to spend 30 minutes showing me everything. I was getting more worry about the time of the game.

When I was expecting the start of the visit I decided to walk around the hotel, admiring the beautiful view and enjoying the mountain´s air. I was not wearing appropriate clothes for this kind of exercise: English tropical pants, social shirt, big cover and black shoes. The shoes were worn despite of matching with the rest of the clothes. Anyway, I moved on until the visit guide appeared in a beautiful Mercedes before I completed my planned rout.

Trying to spend less time in the hotel, I quickly approved the facilities. Then I was in time to get to the stadium. When I was in the car, I realized that my shoes did not resist to the walk. I could see my socks in torn shoes and feel the cold between my toes. I had no time to go downtown and buy new shoes, so I had to wear the tennis in my hand baggage.

I was wearing social dark clothes and a white, blue and red tennis, CSKA colors by the way. Which kind of spy delivers his intentions in the main entrance? I was hoping to be installed in a place where the complete social clothes were not necessary. When I gave the invitation, I really froze. A gold invitation, in yellow letters, with the stadium location, gave me the right to dinner in a fancy stadium restaurant after the game.

I went to the main entrance and I realized that I was being sent to the honor tribune. And my tennis was down there, shining between Italian, English, Australian and even Brazilian shoes... The most honorable guest was by my side: Fabio Capelo, the English national team coach with British shoes. I was never constrained because I needed to do my spy work.

I can´t deny that people was looking down amazed and, when I noticed, I´ve try to cover the tennis. I´m probably the first man to wear shinning tennis in the most important gallery in Aston Villa´s stadium. The Shoes of Fame in reality.

An interesting detail: the journalists in the field were turned in my way - I thought so - with their cameras and flashes. Fabio Capello was the target, but I swear that, for a few moments, I thought they were taking pictures of my tennis in a prohibited place. Or maybe they discovered that I was the spy that came from the cold, Russia naturally.

Mission accomplished, however curious and full of tension.

I had a bigger surprise in Turkey, back to the pre-season, with Aston Villa´s spy arrival in our friendly match. He was shameless than me. The man was wearing Aston Villa´s clothes, he chatted with our president, asked for the team formation, and talked to Zico about a player of ours that could not play. Nobody was rude with him as it happens to me in England.

Conclusion:

There are no more spies as in the past, even less with shinning Adidas shoes in the Queen´s land. And that´s it...