Biography of Andriy Shevchenko

About Andriy Shevchenko

Andriy Shevchenko was born on September 9th 1976 and started playing football during elementary school. He began playing for the youth soccer team Dynamo Kiev, when he was nine years old and went on to play for them on the professional level. In 1999 he transferred to AC Milan, and spent five successful seasons with the team, earning many personal and team awards. His wife Kristen Pazik, along with club owner Roman Abramovich, had convinced him to transfer to move to England and join Chelsea in 2006. Andriy continues to play for Chelsea FC, and is the captain of the national team for Ukraine.

Background

Shevchenko was nine when the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in April 1986. His village was affected by the disaster, and his family was forced to abandon their home and relocate to the coast to escape the aftereffects. At an early age, he was a competitive boxer in the LLWI Ukrainian junior league, but due to his lack of size, he elected to move on to football.

Club Football

Dynamo Kyiv

In 1986, Shevchenko failed a dribbling test for entrance to a specialist sports school in Kiev, but happened to catch the eye of a Dynamo Kyiv scout while playing in a youth tournament, and was thus brought to the club. Four years later, Shevchenko was on the Dynamo Kyiv under-14 team for the Ian Rush Cup (now the Welsh Super Cup) in Wales; he finished as the tournament's top scorer and was awarded a pair of Rush's boots as a prize by the then-Liverpool F.C. player.

In 1992-93, Shevchenko was the top scorer for Dynamo-2 with twelve goals, and he made his first appearance in the starting eleven. He won his second league title next season, scoring 6 goals in 20 matches, and scored a hat trick in the first half of a 1997-98 Champions League road match against FC Barcelona, which Dynamo won 4-0. His nineteen goals in 23 league matches and six goals in ten CL matches were followed by 28 total goals in all competitions in 1998-99. He won the domestic league title with Dynamo in each of his five seasons with the club.

AC Milan

In 1999, Shevchenko joined A.C. Milan for a then-record transfer fee of $25 million. He made his Serie A debut on 28 August 1999 in a 2-2 draw with U.S. Lecce. He became the first foreign player to win the Serie A scoring title in his debut season, finishing with 24 goals in 32 matches.

Despite netting only five times in 24 matches, Shevchenko became the first Ukrainian-born player to win the Champions League after Milan lifted their sixth trophy in 2002-03. He scored the winning penalty in the shoot out against arch-rivals Juventus F.C. in the final, which had ended goalless after extra time. He was the Serie A scoring champion for the second time in his career the next season, again scoring 24 goals in 32 matches as Milan won the Scudetto for the first time in four years. Shevchenko capped off the year by being named the 2004 European Player of the Year, becoming the third Ukrainian player ever to win the award after Oleg Blokhin and Igor Belanov.

He scored seventeen goals in the 2004–05 season after missing several games with a fractured cheekbone. Shevchenko made Champions League history the following season; on 23 November 2005, he scored all four goals in Milan's 4-0 group-stage drubbing of Fenerbahçe SK, becoming only the fifth player to accomplish this feat (his company includes Marco van Basten, Simone Inzaghi, Dado Pršo and Ruud van Nistelrooy). He scored his last Milan goal in the second leg of the quarterfinals as they eliminated Olympique Lyonnais after a last-minute comeback, but then fell to eventual winners Barcelona in the semifinals.

On 8 February 2006, he became Milan's second all-time goalscorer, behind Gunnar Nordahl, after netting against Treviso.

Chelsea FC

During the summer of 2005, there were persistent reports that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich offered a record sum of €85 million (£56.7 million) and striker Hernán Crespo to A.C. Milan in exchange for Shevchenko. Milan refused the monetary offer but took Crespo on loan. Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon was quoted as saying, "I think Shevchenko is the type of player we would like. At the end of the day to improve what we have got, it has to be a great player and Shevchenko certainly comes into that class." Shevchenko cited that the persistence of Abramovich was a key factor in his move.

On May 28, 2006, Shevchenko left Milan for Chelsea for a record fee of £30 million, topping Michael Essien's transfer fee from the previous year. He received the number seven shirt, as Chelsea coach José Mourinho said that Shevchenko could continue wearing it.

Shevchenko made his debut for Chelsea on August 13, 2006 in the FA Community Shield, scoring his side's goal in a 2–1 loss to Liverpool. On August 23, he scored his first FA Premier League goal — and his 300th in top-flight and international football — in a 2–1 loss to Middlesbrough. He scored goals sporadically throughout the season, including equalisers against FC Porto and Valencia CF in the UEFA Champions League and another against Tottenham Hotspur to help take his side into the FA Cup semifinals. He finished with a total of 14 from 51 games.

During the campaign he netted his 57th career goal in European competitions, leaving him 2nd in the all-time European goalscorers list, behind Gerd Muller. Shevchenko's 2006–07 season was cut short due to injury and a hernia operation. He missed the Champions League semi-finals against Liverpool and the FA Cup Final against Manchester United at the new Wembley Stadium on May 19, 2007.

Shevchenko was handed his first start of the 2007-08 season against Blackburn Rovers at home to cover for the injured Didier Drogba. However, the game finished goalless. His first goal of the season came three days later in a match against Rosenborg BK, on September 18, 2007. Shevchenko was in and out of the starting line-up following the appointment of Avram Grant, scoring four Premier League goals against Manchester City, Sunderland and a double against Aston Villa. He also scored two League Cup goals against Leicester City and Liverpool.

International Football - Ukraine

Shevchenko has 79 caps and 36 goals for the Ukraine national team, whom he represented at the 2006 FIFA World Cup. He scored his first international goal in May 1996, in a friendly against Turkey.

In March 2000, Dynamo manager Valeri Lobanovsky became the Ukraine coach, with the aim to qualify for the 2002 FIFA World Cup finals. Shevchenko scored 10 goals in the qualifiers, but Ukraine failed to qualify after losing a play-off against Germany. He scored a total of five goals in Ukraine's Euro 2008 qualifiers.

International Goals

Awards and Honours

Personal Awards

Career Statistics

M = Matches, G = Goals, A = Assists

Personal Info

Wife / Girlfriend

Andriy Shevchenko is married to Kristen Pazik, an American model, from Minneapolis Minnesota. They had met at a Giorgio Armani after party in 2002, and after dating her for two years, they got married on July 14th, 2004 in Washington D.C. Since Kristen does not know any Russian, and Andriy knows hardly any English, they communicate with each other in Italian. They have two children together Jordan, named after Michael Jordan, born on October 24th 2004 and Christian born on November 10th 2006.

Andriy Shevchenko has mentioned that one of the reasons that he joined Chelsea was because of this wife and children. Kristen had wanted their children to be raised in an English speaking country. Her close friendship with Roman Abramovich’s wife was another reason why she had convinced Andriy to move to England.

Stats

Sponsors

Important Links

References