5 Ukrainian Championship:
1994-1995, 1995-1996, 1996-1997, 1997-1998, 1998-1999 4 Ukrainian Cup: 1995-1996, 1997-1998, 1998-1999,
1999-2000 1 Serie A Championship: 2003-2004 1 Italian Cup: 2002-2003 1 European Cup: 2002-2003 1 European Super Cup: 2003 1 Ukrainian League Top Scorer: 1998-1999 2 Serie A Top Scorer: 1999-2000, 2003-2004 1 European Footballer of the Year: 2004
Biography
Andriy Shevchenko is Andriy Mykolayovych Shevchenko, nicknamed "Sheva",
born September 29, 1976, Dvirkivschyna, Kiev Oblast) is a in
Ukrainian football player who is a striker for A.C. Milan and
the Ukrainian national team.
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 has won one Serie A
title, one UEFA Champions League, one European Super Cup, one
Italian Cup and one Italian League Super Cup with Milan till now.
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, as he had a mutated foot. But 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, top scored in the
tournament, and was awarded a pair of Rush's boots as prize by
the Liverpool player himself.
In 1993-94, Andriy top-scored for Dynamo-2 with twelve goals,
and made an appearance in the first team list for FC Dynamo Kyiv
for next season. Andriy's debut in the league for Dynamo came
under manager Yozef Szabo on 28 October 1994, in Donetsk, Dynamo
defeating the home team Shakhtar Donetsk 3-1. He scored his
first league goal in the 4-2 home win against Dnipro on December
1, 1994. Though that was the only goal that Shevchenko scored in
the league that season, he scored another in two matches played
in the UEFA Champions League, and also earned his national team
call-up. His first cap for Ukraine was earned at the age of 19
years and 177 days, in a 0-4 loss to Croatia on 25 March, 1995
at Zagreb. Shevchenko's exceptional ability to convert scoring
chances into goals was fully displayed next season, when he
scored 16 goals in just 31 matches, 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 FC 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 semifinal
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.
In 1999 Shevchenko joined the then 5-time European Cup champions
A.C. Milan for $26 million and has been one of their key players
since.
Shevchenko made his Serie A debut on August 28, 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 the Serie A, Andriy
becoming, in the process, the first non-Italian player to do so
in his debut season. In March 2000, Lobanovsky was made the
Ukrainian national team manager, with the aim to take Ukraine to
the 2002 World Cup. Shevchenko scored 10 goals in the qualifiers,
but Ukraine failed to qualify after losing the playoff against
Germany, and Lobanovsky was sacked.
The next two seasons Shevchenko scored 34 goals in 51 matches,
and 17 goals 38 matches respectively, in all competitions, but
Milan could not win any silverware 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 Champions League final against arch-rivals
Juventus, giving Milan the title. Shevchenko is the first
Ukrainian ever to win the Champions League.
2003-04 was another successful season for both Milan and
Shevchenko. He top scored 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 against FC Porto, Milan
winning the match 1-0, and their second trophy of the season.
In December of 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
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.
In August 2004, Andriy 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 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 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
Andriy. 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 has scored 15 goals in the 20
games that he has played in the league till now, and 7 goals in
7 Champions League matches. On November 23, 2005, in the
Champions League group stage match against Fenerbahçe,
Shevchenko scored four times, 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. Shevchenko
also led the Ukrainian national team to its first qualification
for the World Cup, to take place in June 2006.
On Club records, he is the second all-time goalscorers, behind
AC Milan legend Gunnar Nordahl (Feb 2006, vs Treviso).
