He is not the only Yevhen Shakhov on the football planet! Yevhen Shakhov Sr, his father, was a legend of the Ukrainian game. An attacking midfielder, who topped the scoring charts in the Soviet Union League in 1988 and his 16 goals that season led FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk to the title!

• Yevhen Yevhenovych Shakhov (his full name) was born on 30 November 1990 in Dnipropetrovsk, but spent most of his childhood years in Israel. Not only because of his family’s Israeli descent, but also because his father played there for six years and then was appointed assistant coach at various teams.

Yevhen was considered a prodigy of Ukrainian football, having made his professional debut for FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk on 7 April 2007, at the age of 16 years and 4 months!

• He won the UEFA European Under-19 Championship with Ukraine by… chance. He was called just before the tournament to cover for a last-minute injury. He ended up playing in almost every game and also paved the way for the final, scoring the opener in the semi-final against Serbia (3-1)!

He considers Myron Markevych as his mentor, as he provided him with a spot and a role at Dnipro, after two loan spells at FC Arsenal Kyiv and two dreadful seasons (2012-14) with very few matches under Juande Ramos.

• FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk would never have enjoyed their dream season 2014-15 nor made it to the UEFA Europa League final, if it weren’t for Shakhov. His goal, on an assist by Léo Matos, two minutes before full time, won the encounter against HNK Hajduk Split and sent the Ukrainian side to the group stage. A detail: Igor Tudor was at the helm of the Croatian outfit!

His career in the Ukraine league saw him become a “super sub”: the player who would come off the bench and change the dynamics of a match, who would score the deciding goals. He never admitted to being lucky and would argue that his good fortune could be explained by his eye for goal.

• When asked about “the goal of his life”, he points out to the one he scored against Club Brugge KV (coming as a sub again) nine minutes before time, a strike that saw FC Dnipro qualify to their first ever European semi-final. But he still hasn’t gotten over the fact that he only featured for five minutes in the lost final against Sevilla FC, without having the opportunity to turn the match around.

He has conjured up 17 goals in 69 encounters of Ukraine’s youth national sides, but earned a first-time call for the senior side only last May. He was in the UEFA Euro 2016 pre-selection of Ukraine, but didn’t make it to the final list. His “ticket” to the senior Ukraine side were his four goals and three assists for FC Dnipro in the second part of last season. His international debut though came through PAOK. He has now 3 caps and one goal.

He is tall (1.87m.), plays mainly as an “8”, has excellent finishing skills, fires with both feet from close- and long-range, but he isn’t into physical game. He is a very quiet person outside the pitch. He and his girlfriend kept company with Yevhen Konoplyanka and his partner while in Ukraine and that attracted quite a few paparazzi.

A total of 172 foreign players of 54 different nationalities have put on the PAOK shirt through the years. Shakhov was the first one from Ukraine to play for the “Double-Headed Eagle”. Until then, former coach Oleh Blokhin was the only link between PAOK and the former Soviet republic…

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