Andriy Shevchenko is known as a footballer from Eastern Europe who has achieved impressive success in the West. He played as a striker in the Ukrainian national team, Dynamo Kiev, Milan and Chelsea football clubs. Since 2004 he has been married to American model Kristen Pazik. The couple are raising four sons.
Way to success
The future star of world football was born on September 29, 1976 in the small village of Dvorkovshchina, located in the Kiev region. Andrey's father was a military man, and his mother worked as a nurse. In 1979 the family moved to the capital of the Ukrainian SSR. Shevchenko made his first steps in football playing for the school team. At one of the tournaments for children, coach Alexander Shpakov drew attention to him. At his invitation, at the age of 9, Andrey entered a sports school and signed a contract with the youth team of Dynamo Kiev. But in the first year of training, the Chernobyl disaster occurred. Andriy recalled how people were kept in the dark for a long time, and only after finishing school exams, he and his classmates were evacuated for three months to the south of Ukraine.
Returning to Kiev, Shevchenko dropped out of the sports school at the insistence of his father, because the head of the family saw his son as a continuation of his military career. But coach Shpakov came home to his ward and persuaded his parents to resume playing football. As part of the Dynamo youth team, Andrey participated in various European tournaments. In 1990, he was named the top scorer of the Ian Rush Cup in Wales, after which the footballer himself, whose name the tournament bore, presented the young men with new boots.
At the age of 16, Andrei did not pass the dribbling exam, which was required to enter a specialized sports university in Kiev. Once again, he was faced with the question of continuing his football career. Then Shevchenko decided to give himself a little more time to try to achieve something. Soon he was invited to the Dynamo-2 team, and the next season - to the main team that played in the Premier League. Andriy scored his first goal in adult football on December 1, 1994 in a match against Dnipro.
The young striker played for the capital club for five seasons and won the Ukrainian championship with him five times. In total, he played 118 matches for Dynamo, in which he scored 60 goals. In May 1999 Shevchenko moved to the Italian Milan. Since the 2002/2003 season, there has been an unprecedented rise in the football player's career. His team won the Italian Cup, Champions League, UEFA Super Cup. The following season, Andrei won the title of top scorer in the Italian league. For his outstanding service in European football, he was awarded the Ballon d'Or in December 2004.
Wind of change
During his stay in Italy, Shevchenko struck up a friendship with the fashion designer Giorgio Armani. The tall and stately football player collaborated with the famous designer several times, advertising his clothes. In 2002, at a party held after the next fashion show of the Armani brand, Andrei met the charming blonde Kristen Pazik.
She was born on August 11, 1978 in the United States. On her father's side, the girl has Polish roots. In America, Michael Pazik played in Major League Baseball. And Kristen chose a modeling career for herself, and professional commitments brought her to Italy. They say that before meeting the eminent footballer, Pazik met with Pierre Silvio, the son of Milan president Silvio Berlusconi.
At that fateful party, she was the first to approach Shevchenko to express her admiration for his game. A casual acquaintance very quickly developed into a passionate romance, and soon Andrei and Kristen began to attend social events as a couple. To communicate with each other, the lovers used Italian.
Their wedding, which took place on July 14, 2004, was held in secrecy. The couple chose a golf course in Washington, DC, as the venue for the ceremony. Kristen got married when she was six months pregnant. Journalists learned about the wedding of the best Ukrainian football player only a week later. And on December 29, 2004, the first-born Jordan was born to the couple. By the way, the owner of "Milan" and the future president of Italy Silvio Berlusconi agreed to become the boy's godfather.
They say that it was Pazik who pushed her husband to the decision to move to the Chelsea club, owned by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich. Allegedly, negotiations with the footballer and Milan had been going on for a long time. And Kristen's friendship with Irina Abramovich, the wife of the Chelsea owner, played an important role in them. The press has more than once photographed two women strolling shopping together. In addition, the journalists saw the influence of Shevchenko's wife in the fact that she grew up in an English-speaking culture, and Great Britain was dearer and closer to her than Italy.
One way or another, the Ukrainian footballer first appeared in the Chelsea squad on August 13, 2006. This act of Shevchenko caused a wave of indignation among Italian fans, who called him a "traitor." Commenting on his choice, he noted that moving to England was a "family decision". Kristen was already expecting her second child by that time.
Career decline
Andriy Shevchenko's second son, Christian, was born on November 10, 2006. At Chelsea, the football player's career went wrong. He didn't score that much and often remained on the bench. In 2008-2009 he was loaned to Milan, but even there the Ukrainian was unable to show an impressive game. In August 2009 Shevchenko signed a two-year contract with Dynamo Kiev. The footballer returned to his homeland with his family. His wife gave reporters a short interview, telling how she was going to equip life in a new place. Kristen also said that her husband's grandparents teach their children the Ukrainian language. True, later Pazik returned with her sons to London, which gave rise to rumors about problems in the relationship of the couple.
Andriy Shevchenko officially ended his football career in August 2012. He focused on participating in the parliamentary elections in Ukraine in October 2012. The bitterness of defeat in the political arena for the former athlete was softened by the birth of his third son, Alexander, on October 1, 2012.
After the failure in the elections, Shevchenko settled on coaching, and on July 15, 2016 he took over as the head coach of the Ukrainian national football team. In April 2014, he became a father for the fourth time. Ryder-Gabriel, the son of Andrew and Kristen, was born in London. Obviously, the spouses continue to live in two countries, but try to see each other as soon as possible and often spend family vacations together in hot countries.
