Maksim Shatskikh

Maksim Aleksandrovich Shatskikh was born on 30 August 1978 in Tashkent. He began at the Pakhtakor sports school (1993–1994) and played youth football for MHSK and Chilanzar. He started his senior career in Russia with Sokol Saratov (1996), Torpedo Volzhsky (1996), Lada Togliatti (1997; 22 games, 9 goals), Gazovik-Gazprom Izhevsk (1998; 27 games, 9 goals) and Baltika Kaliningrad (1999; 19 games, 5 goals).

From 1999 to 2009 he played for Dynamo Kyiv: 215 league games and 97 goals, and 328 games and 142 goals in all competitions. With the club he won the Ukrainian championship (1999/00, 2000/01, 2002/03, 2003/04, 2006/07, 2008/09), the Ukrainian Cup (2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007) and the Ukrainian Super Cup (2004, 2006). On 28 July 1999 he scored against Žalgiris and became the first Asian player to score in the UEFA Champions League; he scored 11 goals in nine Champions League seasons. He was top scorer of the Ukrainian league in 1999/00 and 2002/03.

He then played for Lokomotiv Astana (2009–2010; 15 games, 8 goals; Kazakhstan runners-up), Arsenal Kyiv (2010–2012 and 2013), Chornomorets Odesa (2013), Hoverla Uzhhorod (2014–2015) and the amateur club Rukh Vynnyky (2015–2016). On 4 October 2014 he scored his 124th league goal and became the Ukrainian league's all-time top scorer; in August 2010 he was the first to reach 100 goals from play in Ukrainian championships. He ended his playing career in 2016.

For Uzbekistan he played from 1999 and captained the team: 61 caps and 34 goals. On 15 October 2008 he scored his 30th national-team goal against Japan and became the team's top scorer (a record broken by Eldor Shomurodov in 2023). He took part in the 2000, 2007 and 2011 Asian Cups (fourth place in 2011), and his last match was against Oman on 29 May 2014. He was named Honoured Sportsman of Uzbekistan in 2000, Uzbekistan's Footballer of the Year in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007, and third (2003) and second (2005) in the ranking of Asia's best players.

As a coach he worked from 2016 in the Dynamo Kyiv academy and first-team staff and in 2019–2021 as an assistant at Rotor Volgograd. On 2 June 2022 he became sporting director of Pakhtakor, and on 16 July head coach; with the club he won the Uzbek league in 2022 and 2023. From November 2025 he is listed as head coach of Asia Talas in the Kyrgyz Premier League.