Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Shovkovskiy is a graduate of the Dynamo Kyiv football academy. Since his teenage years and up until now he has played for only one club. In fact he has more caps for the club than anybody else in the history of Dynamo. After advancing from one age group youth team to another, the talented young goalkeeper made his way to the first squad of the Ukrainian giants Dynamo where he made his debut in a league fixture in 1993. By next year he was already called up to the Ukraine national football team. Throughout the majority of his career he was the first choice goalkeeper for Dynamo, except for a few brief periods caused by injuries. The goalkeeper's fame came to him as he became notorious for saving penalties, which made him popular in the media and among fans. By the end of 2009 his goals against average in the League was.632 with over 300 games played. In the summer of 2011, Shovkovskiy played his 100th match in the Champions League. Shovkovskiy has played 121 matches in European cups, keeping 33 clean-sheets; 109 of these appearances have come in the UEFA Champions League, in which he has kept 28 clean sheets. On 13 December 2016, Shovkovskiy announced his retirement at the age of 41.
International career
Shovkovskiy is well known for his blunder during the UEFA Euro 2000 play-off game where Ukraine faced Slovenia. In the 83rd minute of the first leg in Ljubljana, Shovkovskiy came out of his goal almost to the corner flag to kick the ball away, but scuffed his kick to Milenko Acimovic 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. Shovkovskiy 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 ; Shovkovskiy 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 Shovkovskiy saved 3 kicks and almost single-handedly won the match. Oleksandr Shovkovskiy also holds a record for being the third most capped player in the Ukrainian national team after Andriy Shevchenko and Anatoliy Tymoshchuk. His goals against average for the national team is.86 with a bit short of 100 games mark on his count. In September 2012, Shovkovskiy announced his retirement from the Ukraine national football team. Until 2013 Shovkovskiy held the record for the Ukraine national team of minutes played without a goal, 728 minutes, but it was beaten by Andriy Pyatov.
Political views
Shovkovskiy 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 Shovkovskiy sent a request to UEFA to start the games of the Ukrainian clubs from a moment of silence, a request that was granted. Shovkovskiy is a supporter of the Euromaidan movement, and said he wants to live by "European values and not by Soviet values". He also criticized the previous government for the use of violence against the protesters. However, he criticized the decision of the new government to take away the status of Russian language as a second language in Russian language speaking regions.
