Not a WMMA fan but as AC Milan fan, yes i do respect a lot Shevchenko
"In 1999, Shevchenko joined
Italian club
Milan for a then-record transfer fee of $25 million. He made his league debut on 28 August 1999 in a 2–2 draw with
Lecce.
[12] Alongside five other players —
Michel Platini,
John Charles,
Gunnar Nordahl,
Istvan Nyers, and
Ferenc Hirzer — he managed, as a foreign player, to win the
Serie A scoring title in his debut season, finishing with 24 goals in 32 matches. Shevchenko maintained his excellent form into the
2000–01 season, scoring 24 goals in 34 matches. Shevchenko also managed to score nine goals in 14 matches in the Champions League. Milan, however, failed to get past the second group stage.
Andriy Shevchenko with Milan in 2004
Despite netting only five times in 24 matches, mainly due to injuries, Shevchenko became the first Ukrainian-born player to win the Champions League after Milan lifted their sixth trophy in
2002–03. He scored the winning penalty in the
shoot out against arch-rivals
Juventus in the
final, which had ended goalless after extra time. Following Milan winning the Champions League, Shevchenko flew to Kiev to put his medal by the grave of
Valeriy Lobanovskyi (who he was managed by when he was at Dynamo), who died in 2002. He finished top goalscorer in Serie A in
2003–04 for the second time in his career, scoring 24 goals in 32 matches as Milan won the
Scudetto for the first time in five years. He also scored the winning goal in the
UEFA Super Cup victory over
Porto, leading to Milan's second trophy of the season. In August 2004, he scored three goals against
Lazio as Milan won the
Supercoppa Italiana. Shevchenko capped off the year by being named the 2004
European Player of the Year, becoming the third Ukrainian player ever to win the award after
Oleg Blokhin and
Igor Belanov. In the same year, Shevchenko was also inducted into the
FIFA 100.
He scored 17 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 (while
Lionel Messi joined that group in the
2009–10 season and Robert Lewandowski in
2012–13), and the only one to have done it in an away game. 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 quarter-finals as they eliminated
Lyon after a last-minute comeback in a 3–1 victory.
[13] In the semi-finals, Milan lost to eventual winners Barcelona 1–0, a match where Shevchenko controversially had a last minute equalizer denied by the referee.
[14] Despite this, he still ended up being the top scorer of the whole competition with 9 goals in 12 games.
[15]
On 8 February 2006, Shevchenko became Milan's second highest all-time goalscorer, behind Gunnar Nordahl, after netting against
Treviso.
[16] He finished the season as joint fourth-top scorer with 19 goals in 28 games. Shevchenko ended his seven-year stint with Milan with 175 goals in 296 games.
#ShevaBless