Oleksandr Shovkovskyi

Oleksandr Volodymyrovych Shovkovskyi (; born 2 January 1975) is a Ukrainian professional football manager and former player who played as a goalkeeper. He was most recently in charge of Ukrainian Premier League club Dynamo Kyiv.

He played for Dynamo Kyiv in the Ukrainian Premier League, the top level of Ukrainian football, from 1993 to 2016. In the 2020 Kyiv local election, Shovkovskyi was elected into the Kyiv City Council, as candidate of UDAR (the party of incumbent Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klychko).

On 13 December 2016, Shovkovskyi announced his retirement at the age of 41.

International career Shovkovskyi is well known for his blunder during the UEFA Euro 2000 play-off game where the Ukraine national team faced Slovenia. In the 83rd minute of the first leg in Ljubljana, Shovkovskyi came out of his goal almost to the corner flag to kick the ball away, but scuffed his kick to Milenko Ačimovič who scored into the empty net from 40 meters out. Ukraine lost this match 2–1 and drew the second leg 1–1 and hence did not qualify for Euro 2000 in Netherlands/Belgium.

Shovkovskyi was the first-choice keeper for Ukraine at the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Notably, he saved two spot kicks from Marco Streller and Ricardo Cabanas in the penalty shootout against Switzerland in their second-round match, which sent Ukraine through to the quarterfinals, becoming the first goalkeeper in FIFA World Cup history not to concede a goal during penalty shootout (Tranquillo Barnetta also hit the bar); Shovkovskyi was subsequently awarded the man of the match award. Also more recently Oleksandr was voted player of the tournament in early 2008, in a Channel One Cup in Israel, which was won by Dynamo in a notorious game against the club's top rival Shakhtar Donetsk. During this game in a series of penalty kicks, Oleksandr Shovkovskyi saved 3 kicks and almost single-handedly won the match. His goals against average for the national team is .86 with a bit short of 100 games mark on his count (92).

In September 2012, Shovkovskyi announced his retirement from the Ukraine national team.

Until 2013 Shovkovskyi held the record for the Ukraine national team of minutes played without a goal, 728 minutes, but it was beaten by Andriy Pyatov.

Four years after his retirement from the game, Shovkovskyi, as an assistant to national team coach Andriy Shevchenko and aged 45, was listed as a back-up goalkeeper for Ukraine for a friendly match away to France on 7 October 2020 after three of the four goalkeepers in the squad tested positive for COVID-19.

Political views and career Shovkovskyi got a lot of media attention when giving an interview about the Euromaidan situation. When commenting on the number of people killed, he mentioned how his grandfather started every toast saying "For not having any wars", after which he couldn't hold his tears. Before a Europa League game against Valencia, Shovkovskyi sent a request to UEFA to start the games of the Ukrainian clubs from a moment of silence, a request that was granted.

Shovkovskyi is a supporter of the Euromaidan movement, and said he wants to live by "European values and not by Soviet values". When questioned about the Euromaidan, he said that for him it started on November 29-30, 2013, when students were beaten, and considering that his son was a student and could have been among those students, it made him upset. As the protests developed, he stopped watching Russian television due to manipulations. However, he criticized the decision of the new government to take away the status of Russian language as a second language in regions where the Russian language was dominant.

Shovkovskyi was a Kyiv City Council candidate of UDAR (the party of incumbent Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klychko) in the 2020 Kyiv local election set for 25 October 2020. He was elected, together with 29 other representatives of his party.

In January 2023, he left his post as assistant coach of Ukraine national team, which he held since 2018.

Career statistics

Club

International

Managerial

Honours Player Dynamo Kyiv Ukrainian Premier League (14): 1993–94, 1994–95, 1995–96, 1996–97, 1997–98, 1998–99, 1999–2000, 2000–01, 2002–03, 2003–04, 2006–07, 2008–09, 2014–15, 2015–16 Ukrainian Cup (10): 1995–96, 1997–98, 1998–99, 1999–2000, 2002–03, 2004–05, 2005–06, 2006–07, 2013–14, 2014–15 Ukrainian Super Cup (6): 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2016 CIS Cup: 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002 Valeriy Lobanovskyi Memorial Tournament: 2003, 2004

Individual Ukrainian Footballer of the Year: 2nd place 2004–05 (by newspaper «Komanda») Ukrainian goalkeeper of the Year (9): 1994, 1997–1999, 2003–2006, 2011 (by newspaper «Ukrayinskyi futbol») UPL goalkeeper of the season: 2010–11, 2011–12 independent Ukraine's history the best footballer, with Andriy Shevchenko and Anatoliy Tymoshchuk) 2000–2010 CIS the best goalkeeper (by soccer.ru) Ukrainian Footballer of the Year: 2nd place (1994), 3rd place (1999) (by newspaper «Ukrayinskyi futbol») 1999 European Goalkeeper of the Year – 2nd place (Based on Ballon d'Or Ranking) 2006 FIFA World Cup round of 16 Switzerland vs Ukraine Man of the Match Shovkovskyi's save in match Rubin Kazan vs. Dynamo Kyiv – 2009–10 UEFA Champions League group stage fifth round Moment of the Round 2010–11 UEFA Europa League best goalkeeper

Manager Dynamo Kyiv Ukrainian Premier League (1): 2024–25

Individual Ukrainian Premier League Coach of the Month: November 2023, December 2023/February 2024, March 2024 SportArena Coach of the Round: 2025–26 (Round 4 ), Ukrainian Premier League Coach of the Round: 2025–26 (Round 4, Round 10 ),