AC Milan
In 1999, Shevchenko joined the then five-time European Cup champions AC Milan (www.acmilan.com) for £26 million and was one of their key players. He made his Serie A debut on 28 August 1999 in a 2-2 draw with Lecce. The season turned out to be extremely fruitful personally; Shevchenko’s haul of 24 league goals in 32 matches earned him the highest scorer title in Serie A, and in the process, he became the first non-Italian player to do so in his debut season. In March 2000, Lobanovsky was made the Ukraine national team manager, with the aim to take Ukraine to the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Shevchenko scored 10 goals in the qualifiers, but Ukraine failed to qualify after losing the play-off against Germany. Over the next two seasons, Shevchenko scored 34 goals in 51 matches then 17 goals in 38 matches in all competitions, but Milan could not win any silverware in either season.
The disappointment of those two seasons was overcome in 2002-03 when Milan won the Champions League as well as the Italian Cup. Though Shevchenko was not in top goal-scoring form in the league, netting only five times in 24 matches, he scored the winning penalty in the final against arch-rivals Juventus, giving Milan the title. Shevchenko was the first Ukrainian-born player ever to win with a club in the Champions League. 2003-04 was another successful season for both Milan and Shevchenko. He was the top scorer in the league for the second time in his career, scoring 24 goals in 32 matches and taking Milan to the league title after a gap of four 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 in the Italian Super Cup and earned Milan the title. In the same season of 2004–05, the club finished second in league standings, helped by the seventeen goals of Shevchenko. They also reached the final of the Champions League, with him scoring six goals in ten matches. But the successes of the season were greatly dampened in the final. The game against Liverpool ended 3–3 after extra time, and went into penalties. Shevchenko missed his spot-kick, giving the English side the title. During the summer of 2004 there were persistent reports that Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea, offered a record sum of £50 million and striker Hernán Crespo to A.C. Milan in exchange for Shevchenko. Milan refused but took Crespo on loan. After that, the determined Abramovich was rumoured to offer another record sum of £85 million to AC Milan and another record weekly wage of £225,000 to transfer him to Chelsea, but was again refused.
Ukrainian postage stamp, released for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, depicting Shevchenko.In October 2005, Ukraine finally managed to qualify for the finals of a World Cup when they topped their qualification group for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, winning seven games out of twelve, and losing only one. Shevchenko was instrumental in this inspired performance by the team, scoring six goals out of the total eighteen by Ukraine.
In the 2005-06 season, Shevchenko scored 19 goals in the 22 games that he played in Serie A. He scored nine goals in 12 total matches for AC Milan in the Champions League, making history along the way. On 23 November 2005, in the second leg of the Champions League group stage match against Fenerbahçe, Shevchenko scored all four times in Milan’s 4-0 drubbing of the Turkish side, becoming only the fifth man after Marco van Basten, Simone Inzaghi, Dado PrÅ¡o and Ruud van Nistelrooy to do so in one match in the competition. On 4 April 2006, Shevchenko scored his 51st goal in Champions League history, going level with Raúl González of Real Madrid.
Shevchenko netted only once in the last four matches of the quarter-final and semi-final stages as Milan were able to eliminate Olympique Lyonnais thanks to a last-minute comeback, but were then held scoreless in both semi-final legs en route to falling to Barcelona. He became Milan’s second all-time goalscorer, behind legend Gunnar Nordahl, after netting against Treviso on 8 February 2006.