THE BALLON D'OR WAS MY CHILDHOOD DREAM. MILAN SAID, 'THE ONLY WAY TO WIN IT IS BY PLAYING FOR US'

Andriy Shevchenko rose from Kyiv to become the world's best - in his own words, he relives a career inspired by Valeriy Lobanovskyi's clocks and Ian Rush's boots, and explains why Volodymyr Zelensky can count on him

- Dani Gil

When the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened in April 1986, I was nine years old. I'd just had a trial with Dynamo Kyiv, and it had gone well, but everything changed. In the first few days following the disaster, we carried on with our normal lives because they thought the situation was under control. Eventually, though, we were evacuated, because of the risk of being so close to ground Zero. My father was in the military and had access to some of the information – they decided to take us to the coast, to the Sea of Azov. There, we stayed in camps for three months until we were able to return. During that time, I lost contact with the people at Dynamo. I honestly felt I'd never play for them again.

In the years before that, I have fond memories of playing in the Kyiv streets with my friends. All the images I keep in my memory are connected to football - I'd wake up and go to bed thinking about it, dreaming of making it as a player. The thought I could achieve it motivated me - I had curiosity and a desire to improve from a very young age.

I regularly competed in inter-school tournaments - they'd call me up to play, and we'd travel by bus to different neighbourhoods. That's when I started to stand out among the kids of my age group. I didn’t always win, but that wasn't the most important thing. Even back then, people could sense the leadership I had on the pitch - I already had a strong mentality.

A guy called Oleksandr Shpakov worked for Dynamo Kyiv and used to attend those kinds of matches because he was a scout for the club, looking for young talents who could make it to the top. I remember he came up to me, introduced himself and told me to get ready for a trial.

After that trial came Chernobyl and my evacuation. In late September or early October, though, after returning to Kyiv, one of Dynamo’s coaches came to visit me. He was surprised I hadn't rejoined the club’s setup - fortunately, I resumed training.