Andriy Mykolayovych Shevchenko (Ukrainian: Андрій Миколайович Шевченко, Andrij Mykolajovyč Ševčenko, born 29 September 1976, Dvirkivschyna, Kiev Oblast) is a Ukrainian football striker who plays for Chelsea in the Premier League. In 2004, he won the Ballon D'or and was included in Pelé's FIFA 100. He is the third-highest goalscorer in the history of European club competition with 60, behind Filippo Inzaghi and Gerd Müller.
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.
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.
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. Milan finished runner-up to Juventus in Serie A, but lost to Liverpool in the 2005 CL final, after Shevchenko missed the decisive penalty in the shoot-out that had followed a 3-3 extra-time draw.
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.
It is useless hiding things — I was with the president, we talked of many things and also about the possibility that I could leave. There hasn't been a definitive decision. I want to be clear, we are only talking. This has nothing to do with my relationship with Milan, there has always been a great deal of affection, as with my team mates and coaches. The decision that I am considering regards above all my family... Andriy Shevchenko[4] |
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 F.C. 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 lineup following the appointment of Avram Grant, scoring four Premier League goals against Manchester City F.C., Sunderland AFC and a double agaist Aston Villa FC. He also scored two League Cup goals against Leicester City and Liverpool FC.
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.
Shevchenko is married to American model Kristen Pazik. The couple met at a Giorgio Armani afterparty in 2002, and married on July 14, 2004 in a private ceremony on a golf course in Washington, DC. They communicate with each other in Italian, though Shevchenko has made public his desire to learn English. Media commentators have speculated that Pazik was a major influence on Shevchenko's decision to sign with Chelsea, citing her friendship with Abramovich's wife and her desire to raise their children in an English-speaking culture. Shevchenko has stated that his move to Chelsea was "a family decision" about what was best for their children.
The couple has two sons, Jordan (named after NBA legend Michael Jordan),born on 29 October 2004, and Christian, born on 10 November 2006. Andriy commemorated Jordan's birth by scoring against Sampdoria the following day (AC Milan won 1–0). AC Milan supremo Silvio Berlusconi is the Godfather of Andriy's first son, Jordan . The day after Christian's birth, Shevchenko scored in a 4–0 Chelsea victory over Watford, and he and several of his teammates gathered and performed the popular "rock-the-baby" goal celebration as a tribute.
Shevchenko is a close friend of fashion designer Giorgio Armani, and has modelled for Armani and opened two boutiques with him in Kyiv.
In June 2005, Shevchenko became an ambassador for the SOS Children's Villages charity.
Shevchenko's first name (Андрій in Ukrainian) does not have a single way of being transliterated from its original spelling in the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet. Andriy is the spelling used throughout the player's official web site . It has also been adopted by UEFA and FIFA and is the preferred spelling in most English publications (although Andrii is used by World Soccer magazine and Andrei by Sky Sports). The correct pronunciation is [an.ˈdrij]. Dynamo Kyiv fans gave him the nickname Sheva, a contraction of Shevchenko.