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Andriy Shevchenko nicknamed "Sheva", born 29 September 1976, Dvirkivschyna,
Kiev Oblast) is a Ukrainian footballer who is contracted to Chelsea of the
English Premier League, and plays for his national team of Ukraine.
Shevchenko is a striker.
At an early age, Shevchenko was a competitive boxer in the LLWI Ukrainian
junior league. Due to his size restrictions, he was forced to move on to
football where he flourished.
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Shevchenko started off his career with Ukrainian side Dynamo Kyiv, with whom
he won five league titles and two national cups in five seasons between 1994
and 1999. He won one Serie A title, one UEFA Champions League, one European
Super Cup, one Italian Cup and one Italian Super Cup with AC Milan.
He was named the European Footballer of the Year in 2004.
Shevchenko has represented Ukraine in 63 matches and has scored 28
international goals.
Andriy was nine when the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in April 1986.
His village, not far from Chernobyl, was also affected by the disaster, and
his family was one amongst the thousands who had to abandon their homes and
relocate to the coast to escape the after-effects. Later the same year,
Andriy failed a dribbling test for entrance to a specialist sports school in
Kyiv. However he happened to catch the sight of a Dynamo Kyiv scout while
playing in a youth tournament, and was thus brought to the club. He was
extremely successful in the youth system at the club, honing his skills in
their junior teams. In 1990, Andriy, playing for the Dynamo Kyiv Under-14
team in the Ian Rush Cup in Wales, was top scorer in the tournament, and was
awarded a pair of Rush's boots as prize by the Liverpool player himself.
Ukrainian postage stamp, released for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, depicting
ShevchenkoIn 1993-94, Andriy was the top scorer for Dynamo-2 with twelve
goals, and made an appearance in the first team list, taking Dynamo to their
second successive league victory. He also scored his first international
goal in May 1996, in a friendly against Turkey, at Samsun. Shevchenko won
the league again next season with Dynamo, scoring 6 goals in 20 games. The
next two seasons, 1997-98 and 1998-99, were abundantly productive for
Shevchenko. The highlight of his 1997-98 season was his first-half hat-trick
against Barcelona in the Champions League, helping Dynamo produce a shock
4-0 away win over the highly-decorated Spanish side. His 19 goals in 23
league matches, 6 goals in 10 Champions League matches, and another league
victory with Dynamo in 1997-98 was followed by 28 goals in all competitions
in 1998-99, and the league top-scorer award for his 18 goals there. His
exploits in the Champions League took Dynamo to the semi-final stage of the
tournament, before they lost to Bayern Munich 3-4 on aggregate.
Shevchenko won the domestic league with Dynamo each of the five seasons he
was with the club. Under the guidance of Valeri Lobanovsky, the manager of
Dynamo from January 1997 to May 2002 (his third spell in the post), he
flourished into one of the team's most prominent and skillful players.
Sheva's current place in world football sees him ranked amongst the best,
alongside the likes of Ronaldinho and Thierry Henry.
In 1999, Shevchenko joined the then five-time European Cup champions AC
Milan for $26 million and was one of their key players.
Shevchenko made his Serie A debut on 28 August 1999 in a 2-2 draw with
Lecce. The season turned out to be extremely fruitful personally;
Shevchenko's haul of 24 league goals in 32 matches earned him the highest
scorer title in Serie A, and in the process, became the first non-Italian
player to do so in his début season. In March 2000, Lobanovsky was made the
Ukraine national team manager, with the aim to take Ukraine to the 2002 FIFA
World Cup. Shevchenko scored 10 goals in the qualifiers, but Ukraine failed
to qualify after losing the play-off against Germany.
Over the next two seasons, Shevchenko scored 34 goals in 51 matches then 17
goals in 38 matches in all competitions, but Milan could not win any
silverware in either season.
The disappointment of the past two seasons was overcome in 2002-03 as Milan
won the Champions League as well as the Italian Cup. Though Shevchenko was
not in top goal-scoring form in the league, netting only five times in 24
matches, he scored the winning penalty in the final against arch-rivals
Juventus, giving Milan the title. Shevchenko was the first Ukrainian-born
player ever to win the Champions League.
2003-04 was another successful season for both Milan and Shevchenko. He was
the top scorer in the league for the second time in his career, scoring 24
goals in 32 matches and taking Milan to the league title after a gap of four
years. He also scored the winning goal in the UEFA Super Cup victory over
Porto, leading to Milan's second trophy of the season.
In December 2004, Shevchenko was named the European Footballer of the Year.
He was also named by Pelé as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers
in March 2004. Also in 2004, Shevchenko was awarded the title Hero of
Ukraine by former President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma.
In August 2004, he scored three goals against Lazio in the Italian Super Cup
and earned Milan the title. In the same season of 2004–05, the club finished
second in league standings, helped by the seventeen goals of Shevchenko.
They also reached the final of the Champions League, with him scoring six
goals in ten matches. But the successes of the season were greatly dampened
in the final. The game against Liverpool ended 3–3 after extra time, and
went into penalties. Shevchenko missed his spot-kick, giving the English
side the title.
In October 2005, Ukraine finally managed to qualify for the finals of a
World Cup when they topped their qualification group for the 2006 FIFA World
Cup, winning seven games out of twelve, and losing only one. Shevchenko was
instrumental in this inspired performance by the team, scoring six goals out
of the total eighteen by Ukraine.
During the summer of 2004 there were persistent reports that Roman
Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea, offered a record sum of £50 million and
striker Hernán Crespo to A.C. Milan in exchange for Shevchenko. Milan
refused but took Crespo on loan. After that, the determined Abramovich was
rumoured to offer another record sum of £85 million to AC Milan and another
record weekly wage of £225,000 to transfer him to Chelsea, but was again
refused.
In the 2005-06 season, Shevchenko scored 19 goals in the 22 games that he
played in Serie A. He scored nine goals in 12 total matches for AC Milan in
the Champions League, making history along the way. On 23 November 2005, in
the second leg of the Champions League group stage match against Fenerbahçe,
Shevchenko scored all four times in Milan's 4-0 drubbing of the Turkish
side, becoming only the fifth man after Marco van Basten, Simone Inzaghi,
Dado Pršo and Ruud van Nistelrooy to do so in one match in the competition.
On 4 April 2006, Shevchenko scored his 51st goal in Champions League
history, going level with Raúl González of Real Madrid.
Shevchenko netted only once in the last four matches of the quarter-final
and semi-final stages as Milan were able to eliminate Olympique Lyonnais
thanks to a last-minute comeback, but were then held scoreless in both
semi-final legs en route to falling to Barcelona.
He became Milan's second all-time goalscorer, behind legend Gunnar Nordahl,
after netting against Treviso on 8 February 2006.
On 31 May 2006, Shevchenko transferred to Chelsea, ending his seven-year
career with AC Milan. |
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