When we looked down at the teamsheets for Chelsea’s match away to Dynamo Kiev, one name jumped out.
Oleksandr Shovkovskiy, the goalkeeper for the Ukrainians, is a name we remember well from watching the same team in their mid-late 1990s heyday. It couldn’t be the same guy, right? Wrong.
The 40-year-old, who played for Dynamo as a teenager alongside current manager Sergei Rebrov and former Chelsea striker Andrey Shevchenko, is just three years shy of the record for the Champions League’s oldest ever player.
Here are a few things that put into context just how old Shovkovskiy is.
He made his international debut more than 20 years ago, in a qualifier for Euro 96, and one of his team-mates had played internationally for the USSR
When he was born, the Vietnam War was still going on
He is a month older than Natalie Imbruglia
Two months older than Will.i.am
Almost a full year older than Tiger Woods
And a decade older than Charlie Adam
Lonely This Christmas by Mud was Number 1 in the UK on the day he was born (ask your dad)
He’s older than Jaws
And Star Wars
And when Dynamo Kiev forward Derlis Gonzalez was born, Shovkovskiy was already of legal drinking age.
Still, he kept out Chelsea, so fair play to him
