Andriy Shevchenko

Andriy Mykolayovych Shevchenko, or Andrii Mykolaiovych Shevchenko (Андрій Миколайович Шевченко, ; born 29 September 1976) is a Ukrainian politician, a former professional football player and manager.

Shevchenko played as a striker for Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan, Chelsea and the Ukraine national team.

He was most recently head coach of Serie A club Genoa.

Shevchenko is considered one of the greatest strikers of all time and Ukraine’s greatest ever player.

He is the all-time top scorer for the Ukraine national team with 48 goals.

Shevchenko began his career at Dynamo Kyiv and won five league titles in a row before signing for Milan.

Shevchenko was born in Dvirkivshchyna, Ukrainian SSR, in 1976, into the family of Praporshchik Mykola Hryhorovych Shevchenko.

In 1979, his family moved to the newly built neighbourhood in Kyiv – Obolon (Minsk District was created in 1975).

In Kyiv, Shevchenko went to the 216th City School and in 1986 (aged 9) enrolled into the football section coached by Oleksandr Shpakov.

Because of the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, together with his sport group he was evacuated temporarily from the city.

At an early age, he also was a competitive boxer in the LLWI Ukrainian junior league, but eventually he elected to move on to football.

In 1986, Shevchenko failed a dribbling test for entrance to a specialist sports school in Kyiv, 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 under-14 team for the Ian Rush Cup (now the Welsh Super Cup); he finished as the tournament's top scorer and was awarded a pair of Rush's boots as a prize by the then-Liverpool player.

He was a substitute for the last six home games of the 1992–93 Ukrainian First League and did not score any goals.

Shevchenko started out his professional career at age 16 when he came on for only 12 minutes as a substitute in a 0–2 home loss to the Odesa second team Chornomorets-2 Odesa on 5 May 1993.

The next 1993–94 season at the second tier, Shevchenko was the top goal scorer for Dynamo-2 with 12 goals, and he made his first appearance in the starting XI.

Shevchenko scored his first goal against Krystal Chortkiv at the home 1–1 draw on 7 October 1993.

During the same season, he recorded his first hat-trick in a home game against Artania Ochakiv on 21 November 1993 which Dynamo-2 won 4–1.

Shevchenko stayed with Dynamo-2 until the end of 1994 and once again he was called up for one game in late 1996.

He made his Vyshcha Liha debut for Dynamo squad on 8 November 1994 in an away game against Shakhtar Donetsk when he was 18.

It was actually his second game for the senior squad overall after he played a home game of National Cup competition on 5 November 1994 against Skala Stryi.

That year Shevchenko became a national champion and became a cup holder with Dynamo.

He won his second league title the next season, scoring 6 goals in 20 matches.

He scored a hat-trick in the first half of a 1997–98 UEFA Champions League away match against Barcelona, which Dynamo won 4–0; no other visitor to the Camp Nou scored a Champions League treble until 2021.

His 19 goals in 23 league matches and six goals in ten Champions League matches (including a hat-trick over two legs against Real Madrid) 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 Italian club Milan for a then-record transfer fee of $25 million.

In Milan, he established himself as one of the top strikers in Europe and won the UEFA Champions League in 2003.

He also won various league and cup titles in Ukraine, Italy and England.

In 2004, he was named as one of the top 100 greatest living footballers as part of FIFA's 100th anniversary celebration, and in the same year he also received the Ballon d'Or.

He was also a Champions League runner-up in 2005 and 2008.

He was named in the FIFA World XI for 2005.

In his international career, he led Ukraine as captain to the quarter-finals in their first ever FIFA World Cup appearance in 2006, and also took part at UEFA Euro 2012 on home soil.

Shevchenko is ranked as the seventh top goalscorer in all UEFA club competitions with 67 goals.

With a tally of 175 goals scored for Milan, he is the second most prolific player in the history of the club, and is also the all-time top scorer of the Derby della Madonnina (the derby between Milan and their local rivals Inter Milan) with 14 goals.

Quitting football for politics in 2012, he stood for election to the Ukrainian Parliament in the October 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election, but his party failed to win parliamentary representation.

He returned to football in 2016, as assistant coach of the Ukraine national team February to July, at the time led by Mykhaylo Fomenko.

In July 2016, Shevchenko was appointed Ukraine's head coach, and led the nation to the quarter-finals at UEFA Euro 2020.

Shevchenko became the Vice President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine on 17 November 2022.

He left the National Olympic Committee in January 2023 due to disagreement with the results of the election of its new President Vadym Gutzeit.