Andrei Shevchenko

Shevchenko's career has been highlighted by many awards, the most prestigious of which were the Ballon d'Or in 2004 (becoming the third Ukrainian, after Oleg Blokhin and Igor Belanov to receive it) and the UEFA Champions League in 2003 with Milan. Along with this, he has won various league and cup titles in Ukraine, Italy, and England. Besides the Golden Ball, Shevchenko was awarded other individual awards.

Andrei Shevchenko Celebrate Expression

Andrei Shevchenko Get Golden Trophy

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, becoming only the fifth player to accomplish this feat (his company includes Marco van Basten, Simone Inzaghi, Dado Pršo and Ruud van Nistelrooy; Lionel Messi joined that group in the 2009–10 season as well). Milan eventually lost the tournament when Shevchenko missed the crucial penalty in the final against Liverpool. In the 2005-06 season, 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, a match where Shevchenko controversially had a last minute equalizer denied by the referee. Despite this, he still ended up being the top scorer of the whole competition with 9 goals in 12 games.

Andrei Shevchenko Made A Goal

Shevchenko has 100 caps and 45 goals for the Ukrainian 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 qualifying round.

After only playing two games for Milan in the 2008-2009 season, there was a lot of speculation of Shevchenko being past his best but he silenced his critics after scoring an equaliser in an 2010 World Cup qualifying match against England at the Wembley Stadium, however Ukraine went on to lose the game 2–1 after his former Chelsea teammate John Terry had scored from a corner kick.

In a 21 December 2009 interview with UEFA Shevchenko declared that he was keen to play in his home country at Euro 2012. "After a disappointing 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign that is my new challenge, or even dream. I will do everything to achieve that."

Shevchenko is married to American model Kristen Pazik. The couple met at a Giorgio Armani afterparty in 2002, and married on 14 July 2004 in a private ceremony on a golf course in Washington, DC. They communicate with each other in Italian, though Shevchenko had previously made public his desire to learn English. After his return to Dynamo Kyiv in August 2009 the couple declared that they want their children to learn Ukrainian