Shevchenko calls it quits

DONETSK,  Ukraine    ●   Ukraine striker Andriy Shevchenko announced he will retire from international football after his country’s elimination from Euro 2012 with a 1-0 defeat by England on Tuesday.

Shevchenko told reporters he intends to says his farewell in a friendly game before standing down from national team duty.

Shevchenko, a profile:

The greatest Ukrainian footballer of them all, and the country’s record goalscorer by a considerable distance, Andriy Shevchenko ended his 17-year international career on a high as he captained Ukraine on home soil at UEFA EURO 2012.

• Shevchenko enjoyed phenomenal early success with FC Dynamo Kyiv, the club he joined as a schoolboy, winning five successive Ukrainian titles and contributing to that fabulous run with 60 top-flight goals, including a league-best tally of 18 in 1998/99, the season in which he also topped the UEFA Champions League charts with ten goals as Dynamo reached the semi-finals.

• Joined AC Milan in July 1999 and hit the ground running, finishing top of the Serie A goal charts in his debut season (the first foreigner to achieve the feat) with 24 goals, a tally he would match the following campaign and again in 2003/04, when he led the listings once more as Milan won the Scudetto; crowned as a Ballon d’Or winner in December 2004 to go with his six Ukrainian footballer of the year titles.

• Won the UEFA Champions League with the Rossoneri in 2003, scoring the decisive spot kick in the final against Juventus to crown an injury-curtailed campaign; however, missed crucially from the spot in the 2005 showpiece against Liverpool FC.

• A prolific marksman also for his nation, he captained the team to the quarter-finals of the 2006 FIFA World Cup – his only major tournament pending a farewell appearance at UEFA EURO 2012; became the first player to reach the 100-cap milestone for Ukraine, in October 2010, having scored a record 45 international goals at the time.

• Left Milan in 2006 with 127 Serie A and 38 European goals to his credit, but a €45m move to Chelsea FC did not work out and he returned to Milan for an equally unsuccessful loan spell in 2008/09 before making the permanent move back to Dynamo a year later.

UEFA honours
UEFA Champions League: winner 2003, runner-up 2005, 2008
UEFA Champions League: leading scorer 1998/99, 2005/06
UEFA Super Cup: winner 2003
UEFA Club Forward of the Year: 1999
UEFA.com users’ Team of the Year: 2004, 2005