Andriy Shevchenko
Ballon d’Or winner. Champions League winner. Serie A winner. Captain of Ukraine at their first-ever World Cup. Andriy Shevchenko conquered the football world. His career featured some of the sport’s greatest characters – from Valerij Lobanovsky, who shaped his early years at Dynamo Kyiv, to Carlo Ancelotti, Paolo Maldini, Andrea Pirlo and Kaka as part of a world-class Milan team. But Shevchenko’s story transcends football. Growing up 150km from the Chernobyl disaster, witnessing the decline of the Soviet Union and its descent into lawlessness, the struggles of his beloved Ukraine to gain independence in 1991 – and then the agony of the Russian invasion of his homeland in 2022. This is a football and human story like no other.
‘He was truly unique, impossible to compare to any other player the football gods have sent down. Sheva is Sheva and then there’s everyone else’ Paolo Maldini
Andriy Shevchenko is one of the best strikers of the 21st century. He won the Ballon d'Or during a hugely successful spell at AC Milan, where he scored the winning penalty to pick up the 2003 Champions League. He captained his home country of Ukraine at their first-ever World Cup in 2006 and managed them at Euro 2020. Following Russian's invasion of Ukraine in 2020, he is now engaged in a mission to raise money and awareness of his country's situation.
