Andrii Shevchenko

There is no doubt that over the last 10 years Andrei Shevchenko has proved himself to be one of the finest strikers in the world. He began his career in 1994/5 with Dynamo Kiev, he made only 5 starts that season scoring only a solitary goal, but the following four seasons he demonstrated his goalscoring prowess with 59 goals in 102 matches. It wasn't only in the Ukraine that he scored his goals, in his final season with Kiev he scored 8 goals in 10 Champions League matches as Dynamo made it through to the last four before losing out to Bayern Munich 4-3 on aggregate.

In 1999, Shevchenko, by now one of the most vaunted strikers in world football moved to AC Milan for 26 million Euro's and immediately settled into Italian football scoring on his debut against Lecce, indeed he scored a further 23 goals in his first season which was good enough to make him Serie A's top goalscorer, a feat he repeated in the 2003/4 season, he was also crowned European Footballer of the Year in 2004. In his seven seasons for the Rossoneri he managed 127 goals in 208 Serie A appearances, a fantastic performance. Shevchenko was instrumental in Milan's Champions League triumph in 2003 scoring the decisive penalty against Juventus at Old Trafford, however he had to endure the heartbreak of missing the crucial spot kick when Liverpool triumphed in the remarkable 2005 final. In the summer of 2006 Shevchenko joined Chelsea for over £29 million but struggled to make an impact for the world's richest club.

However for the Ukraine Shevchenko remains indisputably his country's finest player, perhaps finest ever player, only Oleg Blokhin, his national coach could contest the title with Sheva, though Blokhin only ever played for the Soviet Union as this was before the Berlin Wall came down. Andrei made his debut for the Ukraine in 1995 against Croatia in Zagreb and scored his first international goal a year later against Turkey, he now has 33 goals from 71 internationals and is easily his country's highest scorer. Ukraine made it to the World Cup Finals in Germany, the first time they have qualified for a major tournament and fared splendidly reaching the quarter-finals before losing to eventual winners Italy 3-0, Shevchenko managed two goals in the tournament and it was fitting that one of the world's great strikers should finally grace the biggest stage of all.