Shevchenko failed a dribbling test as a boy and still became Ukraine's greatest striker
At nine, Andriy Shevchenko flunked the dribbling test for a specialist sports school in Kyiv. A Dynamo Kyiv scout happened to see him at a youth tournament anyway. Four years later he topped the scoring at the Ian Rush Cup in Wales, and the Liverpool striker gave him a pair of his own boots.
Born on 29 September 1976 in Dvirkivshchyna, he moved with his family to the new Kyiv district of Obolon in 1979. After that scout's rescue, he entered Dynamo's first team as a teenager and won five consecutive league titles plus three domestic cups under the coach Valeriy Lobanovskyi.
Milan paid a then-record 25 million dollars in 1999, and in his debut Serie A season he finished top scorer with 24 goals in 32 games, something only a handful of foreign players had managed. In the 2003 Champions League final against Juventus, goalless after extra time, he struck the decisive penalty, becoming the first Ukrainian-born winner of the trophy, and then flew to Kyiv to lay the medal at Lobanovskyi's grave. He won the Ballon d'Or in 2004, and on 23 November 2005 scored all four in a 4–0 win away to Fenerbahçe. The shoot-out also turned against him: his miss decided the 2005 final against Liverpool. He left Milan with 175 goals in 296 games, second only to Gunnar Nordahl in club history.
Chelsea broke the English transfer record to sign him in May 2006 for 30.8 million pounds, and he won both domestic cups in his first season there before returning to Milan on loan and finishing his playing career at Dynamo.
For Ukraine he scored 48 goals, a national record, and captained the side to the quarter-finals of its first World Cup. He stood unsuccessfully for parliament in October 2012, then came back to football, coaching Ukraine to the Euro 2020 quarter-finals. After a brief spell at Genoa, he was elected President of the Ukrainian Football Association in January 2024.
Source: Andriy Shevchenko
