When Chelsea signed Andriy Shevchenko from AC Milan in the summer of 2006, they broke the British transfer record to land a forward widely rated as the finest in Europe. The fee, a British record of around £30 million, and the reputation that travelled with it set an expectation that the Ukrainian never quite met at Stamford Bridge. Across two seasons, he made 77 appearances and scored 22 goals in all competitions, won the FA Cup and the League Cup, but spent most of his time in the shadow of Didier Drogba before returning to Milan on loan.
Who Is Andriy Shevchenko?
Born on the 29th of September 1976 in Dvirkivshchyna, near Kyiv, Shevchenko grew up in the Soviet Union and made his name as one of the most complete forwards of his generation. Left-footed, quick and composed in front of goal, he blended a poacher’s instincts with the range to score from distance and the strength to lead a line on his own. By the time Chelsea came calling, he had already won almost everything the club game had to offer. He was a European champion, a Serie A winner and, in 2004, the holder of the Ballon d’Or as the best player in Europe.
He arrived in England aged 29, with little left to prove and a great deal to live up to. Shevchenko emerged at Dynamo Kyiv, winning five consecutive Ukrainian league titles and announcing himself to the wider game with a hat-trick away at Barcelona in the Champions League in 1997. Two years later and he moved to AC Milan, where he became a great of the game. For Milan, he scored 175 goals in a little over 300 games, won the Serie A title in 2004 and, a year earlier, the Champions League, converting the decisive spot kick in the 2003 final shoot-out against Juventus at Old Trafford.
He won the 2004 Ballon d’Or and, but for Chelsea’s persistence and Roman Abramovich’s money, might have finished his career in the red and black of Milan. That context matters, though, because the player who came to Stamford Bridge was not the forward who had once torn through the Italian top-flight, but was instead one that was already the wrong side of 29. One of Chelsea’s strengths under the Russian billionaire owner had been to eschew the chance to sign ‘Galacticos’, instead bringing in the right players at the right time, with Shevchenko being a rare misstep.
The £30 Million Move to Stamford Bridge
On the 31st of May 2006, after more than one failed attempt in earlier windows, Chelsea announced that they had agreed a deal to sign Andriy Shevchenko. The fee, a British record of around £30 million, made him the most expensive player in the country’s history at the time and the marquee purchase of Abramovich’s spending. He took the number 7 shirt, but the move also carried a personal dimension. Shevchenko’s wife was keen to live in London and his relationship with Abramovich was warm, which fed a persistent, never-proven suspicion that the transfer was as much the owner’s wish as the manager’s.
José Mourinho, who already had Didier Drogba leading his line, inherited a forward he had obviously not asked for. That undercurrent shaped the two seasons that followed, with one of the greatest forwards in Milan’s history having to play second fiddle to Drogba. Shevchenko scored on his first Chelsea outing, an equaliser shortly before half-time in the FA Community Shield against Liverpool at the Millennium Stadium on the 13th of August 2006, though Chelsea lost the match 2-1. It set a misleading tone, because the league goals did not follow at anything like the expected rate. In all, he made 51 appearances in 2006-2007 and scored 14 goals, but only four of them came in the Premier League.
He was sharper in the cups, scoring in the FA Cup against Nottingham Forest and Norwich City, as well as netting again in the fifth-round replay win away at Tottenham Hotspur. The raw figures were not a disaster for a first season, but set against the fee and the reputation, they read as a letdown. In truth, Shevchenko never really looked settled in London, initially struggling to adapt to the physicality of the Premier League as well as the way in which Mourinho liked to play his football. Perhaps he never really recovered from the devastating Champions League loss to Liverpool in 2005.
Silverware in 2007 and a Fading Second Season
For all the frustration, the first season still ended with two domestic trophies. Shevchenko started the 2007 League Cup final against Arsenal at the Millennium Stadium on the 25th of February, which was a match that Chelsea won 2-1 through a Drogba double, before he was replaced deep into stoppage time. The FA Cup should have completed the set, but a hernia ruled him out of the final against Manchester United at the new Wembley on the 19th of May 2007. Chelsea won it 1-0 through a Drogba goal in extra-time, sealing the domestic cup double.
Having watched the FA Cup final from the sidelines, Shevchenko had surgery that summer, but the injury lingered. As a result, the 2007-2008 campaign offered fewer chances still. Mourinho left the club early in the campaign and under Avram Grant, the Ukrainian remained a squad option rather than a first-choice forward. Not that there weren’t flashes of the old quality. On the 26th of December 2007, for example, he scored twice in a chaotic 4-4 draw with Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge, scoring a penalty and netting a well-taken second-half finish, in one of the season’s wilder matches.
But when Chelsea reached the 2008 Champions League final against Manchester United in Moscow on the 21st of May, Shevchenko was an unused substitute as the Blues lost 6-5 on penalties after a 1-1 draw. It was a fitting picture of his Chelsea career, being present for the biggest nights, but watching them from the bench. As a result, in the August of 2008, Shevchenko went back to AC Milan on a season-long loan, hoping to recover the form of his peak. It did not return, with injuries and age having caught up with him. He managed only a couple of goals across the campaign, neither in Serie A.
He came back to Chelsea in 2009, but had no future there and so the club released him. That summer he rejoined Dynamo Kyiv, the club where it had all started for him, closing a chapter in English football that had promised a great deal but delivered comparatively little. By the tally that counts, 22 goals in 77 games and two cup medals, Shevchenko’s Chelsea years remain a study in how a world-class forward and a record fee do not, on their own, guarantee success. He is one of only a handful of Chelsea players to have won the Ballon d’Or, but didn’t do so whilst actually at the club.
Shevchenko’s Playing Style
At his best, Andriy Shevchenko was a complete centre-forward, boasting a left foot that was lethal over five yards, being strong enough to hold the ball up and skilled enough to finish from range or drift into the channels. Much of that had been built on the counter-attacking football of Milan, where he fed on quick service into space. At Chelsea, however, several things worked against him. He was past his physical peak, was often asked to play alongside or in place of a settled Drogba rather than as the sole focal point, and suffered injuries that cost him rhythm at the worst moments.
The talent was unquestionable and the medals were still there to be put into his personal trophy cabinet, but the pace of the Premier League and the timing of the move meant that Chelsea supporters saw only glimpses of the striker who had lifted the Ballon d’Or two years before. In some ways, his time at Stamford Bridge was a cautionary tale, about a player being bought by an owner for their own personal whims rather than because the manager wanted them, and about taking on a challenge that was never really suited to his strengths at that point in his career.