As someone schooled in Italy’s uncompromising defensive arts, Mahamdou Sissoko is so well prepared that he has already cancelled out Gary Hooper before the pair even set foot on the Hampden Park pitch on Sunday.
That is because the Kilmarnock centre-back and the Celtic striker share the same shirt number. Both will wear No 88 on their backs, as to each it represents 1988, the year of their birth.
Yet, if the Scottish Communities League Cup final is Sissoko’s first big occasion, he has already survived a crash course with one of the most prolific strikers of all time.
The Frenchman had to mark Filippo Inzaghi when he was a teenager making his first appearance in Serie A for Udinese against AC Milan five years ago. Just a few months earlier, Inzaghi’s two goals in the 2007 Champions League final defeated Liverpool, but Sissoko managed to get through the encounter without a dent in his own reputation.
“I have never been involved in a cup final before so I am very excited about playing in my first,” said the Paris-born Sissoko, who is still contracted to Udinese but moved to Kilmarnock on loan in July 2010. “I did not even play a cup final when I was a child, so I hope I can win this one.
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“This is my biggest game. Before that, playing for Udinese against AC Milan in the San Siro was my biggest game. I was just 18 at the time. It was a great game but we lost 2-1. I came on for the last 20 minutes and played against Inzaghi and [Yoann] Gourcuff.”
Sissoko was capped by France at under-20 level and spent three years in Udinese’s youth academy, before loans to lower league clubs in Italy, and then a season on loan to Eupen in Belgium. The plethora of internationals at Udinese saw his chances to return there diminish and Sissoko jumped at the chance when Mixu Paatelainen recruited him two seasons ago.
Kenny Shiels, the manager, extended that loan because Kilmarnock could not afford the £700,000 fee wanted by Udinese last summer but Sissoko was not able to persuade the Rugby Park dressing room to offer him the welcome present he desired.
“Someone already had the No 6 shirt, so I decided to take No 88, the year of my birth,” Sissoko, 23, said. “I see Hooper is the same. He is a great player but I will be ready for him. Hooper and [Anthony] Stokes are two good strikers and they have been doing well this season. They are not the best that I have faced in Scotland, though, as I think Nikica Jelavic was better before he left Rangers for Everton.”
Sissoko’s regular defensive partner, Manuel Pascali, is out with a broken leg, so he will line up against Celtic with Michael Nelson, the former Norwich City defender. “I had a great partnership with Pascali, but Michael is a great player, so we can do it,” he said.
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Sissoko’s family from Paris will be at Hampden, and he knows he could be moving again in the summer “I do not know what my future will be. I’d like to go back to France but I’ve two years left on my contract at Udinese,” he said.