Maksym Oleksandrovych Shatskikh is an Uzbek soccer player with Ukrainian citizenship who plays as a forward.
Place of Birth, Education
He was born on August 30, 1978, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Career
Early Career
He is a product of the Tashkent “Pakhtakor” soccer academy. At a youth tournament when he was 15, a scout from England’s Tottenham Hotspur took notice of the forward, but no concrete offers were made. After that, Shatskikh played for Pakhtakor in the city championship.
In 1995, the YUTKO club, founded by a local private company, joined Uzbekistan’s second division. Sergei Kovalyov, Shatskikh’s first coach, invited a group of his 16- to 17-year-old protégés to join the team. Shatskikh himself became the captain.
His play caught the attention of the Tashkent club “Chilanzar,” which was fighting for promotion to the top league at the time.The team signed the forward on loan for the decisive matches, and Shatskikh scored several crucial goals that helped the club move up a division.
Despite his successful performances early in his career, Shatskikh never made his debut in Uzbekistan’s top league. Instead, he decided to try his hand at Russian soccer and joined the club “Sokol-PZD.” Early in his first senior season, he suffered an injury, which prevented him from establishing himself on the team.
He spent the rest of the season with Torpedo in the city of Volzhsky.
After the 1996 season ended, he joined Lada Togliatti. In his very first match for his new team, on July 3, 1997, he opened the scoring with a goal in a game against Saturn in Ramenskoye.
During the 1999 season, the forward played for Izhevsk’s “Gazovik-Gazprom” and later transferred to Kaliningrad’s “Baltika,” where he scored 5 goals in the league over half a season, and in a Russian Cup match, he scored a hat trick against Smolensk’s “Kristall.”
“Dynamo” (Kyiv)
Shatskikh’s impressive play caught the attention of Kyiv’s “Dynamo. “ In July 1999, midway through the season, the club bought out the forward’s contract. The very next day, July 24, the player made his debut for Dynamo Kyiv in a Ukrainian Premier League match against Karpaty Lviv.
Soon after , Shatskikh also played in European competition— in the qualifying round against “Žalgiris.” After his debut, the press began comparing the forward to Andriy Shevchenko, who had just transferred to “Milan.”
In the next qualifying round, Shatskikh also stood out with his goals—he scored against “Aalborg” both in Denmark and in Kyiv.
However, he did not show the same scoring form in the group stage matches of the European cups, scoring only one goal in the game against Bayer Leverkusen in Kyiv.
In the Ukrainian league, however, the forward performed well: in his very first season, he became the tournament’s top scorer with 20 goals. Three years later, he tied Serhiy Rebrov’s record by scoring 22 goals in a season.
During his ten seasons with Dynamo Kyiv, he was the Ukrainian Premier League’s top scorer twice and the Ukrainian Cup’s top scorer three times. During that time, he scored 23 goals in European competitions and 97 in the top league, including four hat tricks.
Together with the Kyiv-based Shatskykh club, he won the Ukrainian championship six times, the national cup five times, and the Super Cup twice. During this period, he also obtained Ukrainian citizenship.
In the summer of 2009, the soccer player signed a contract with the Astana-based club “Lokomotiv, “ but returned to Kyiv the very next year.
“Arsenal”
After returning to Ukraine in February 2010, Shatskikh joined Kyiv’s “Arsenal. “ As early as April 4, in a match against Zaporizhzhia’s “Metallurg,” he scored a goal, which marked his 100th in the top division of the Ukrainian championship.
On September 11, 2010, in a match against “Tavria,” he played his 500th official match of his professional career.
On March 20, 2011, in a match against “Illichivets,” the forward played his 250th game in the Ukrainian Premier League. In that same game, he scored a goal, which was his 109th in Ukrainian league play.
During the 2011–2012 season, he scored three goals and helped Arsenal qualify for European competition for the first time in the club’s history.
On January 14, 2013, Odessa’s “Chornomorets” announced that it had signed a 2.5-year contract with the forward. On March 16, he made his debut for the team in a match against Donetsk’s “Shakhtar.”
However, he was unable to establish himself on the Shatsk team. On June 1, 2013, the parties terminated the contract by mutual agreement, after which the player returned to Kyiv’s “Arsenal. “
“Hoverla”
In late 2013, reports emerged that Shatskikh had signed a 2. 5-year contract with Uzhhorod’s “Hoverla . ”
The forward made his debut in the 19th-round league match against Zaporizhzhia’s “Metallurg” and scored his first goal in that very game, finding the back of the net in the 59th minute.
In the 28th-round match, “Hoverla” defeated “Volyn” of Lutsk by a score of 6–0. Shatskikh opened the scoring as early as the 3rd minute and later provided two assists in the 29th and 36th minutes. In the next match against Chornomorets, his assist in the 93rd minute helped the team snatch a draw.
The forward kicked off the new season with a goal in the 15th minute against “Karpaty.”
In the next game against “Metallurg,” the player made his mark again, scoring in the 86th minute. He also scored in a cup match against “Cherkasy Dnipro,” provided an assist in the match against “Illichivets,” and scored a goal in the 8th round against Luhansk’s “Zorya.”
In the second half of the season, he recorded an assist in the 70th minute of the match against “Metalist,” and in the game against Volyn, he provided another assist in the 28th minute and received a yellow card in the 66th.
Shatskyi’s season ended with a Matchday 26 game against Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk.
National Team
Shatskikh played for all of Uzbekistan’s national teams across all age groups —from the junior to the youth level.
In 1999, at the age of 20, he made his debut for the national team. In his first match, the forward immediately scored a hat trick against the Azerbaijani national team.
In total, Shatskikh scored 8 goals in his first four games for the national team.
In 2003, he was named Uzbekistan’s best soccer player for the first time, and in 2005, the forward was named one of the top three players in Asia, finishing in second place.
On October 15, 2008, in a 2010 World Cup qualifying match against Japan, he scored his 30th goal for the national team and became the all-time leading scorer in the history of the Uzbekistan national team.
As part of the Shatskyi team, he reached the semifinals of the 2011 Asian Cup; he served as captain of the national team during the tournament and scored one goal.
In total, he played 60 matches for the Uzbekistan national team and scored 34 goals.
