“It's not just football; we talk about life

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Three hours after Russia intensified its military attack on Monday morning, the young Serhii, 20 years old and originally from Kalush, a Ukrainian town of 60,000 inhabitants near the border with Slovakia and Poland, was walking through the center of Warsaw.

His cell phone had just received photos of his mother and his brothers hiding in an anti-aircraft shelter in his town.

"They have bombed 30 kilometers," warned this exile in a calm voice who now lives alone with his father in the Polish capital.

“He had already been in Warsaw for five years, and when Russia invaded us, he came back to Kulush to bring us here.

But recently my mother went back with my brothers because she says that her work is there”, he recounted next to the Royal Castle, one of the most touristic areas.

Serhii declares himself a Shakhtar fan despite the great distance between Kalush and Donetsk, about 1,200 kilometers.

"We are a feeling," he proclaimed.

What he will not do, yes, will be to go to the Legia stadium on Tuesday to see his team against Madrid.

“The tickets are very expensive [the cheapest, about 80 euros;

400 Polish zlotys;

it's all sold out].

I don't know anyone who goes”, he complained surrounded by hikers and with the sun warming the cold morning.

The one who will attend is Andrei, another Ukrainian who landed in Warsaw in 2019 looking for new horizons.

He, in fact, is a Shakhtar regular, whom he has accompanied since 2010 throughout his wandering career.

"In Warsaw there aren't many of our fans, only Ukrainians who support a Ukrainian team or Poles who want to see the Champions League," acknowledged this young man with a round face.

Since the end of February, Ukraine has been surviving by looking up at the sky and clinging to the patriotic float;

However, the exceptionality of Shakhtar Donetsk began in 2014, when the war began in Donbas, their area of ​​​​origin.

Since then, his identity is that of a nomad, as Madrid has well verified.

This is the fourth time since 2015 that the Whites have taken a plane to face this team and Warsaw, their third destination.

Never Donetsk.

Before they were in Lviv (2015-16; 1,200 kilometers from their stadium) and kyiv (2020-21 and 21-22; 700 km).

And, in this period, Shakhtar also settled for several seasons in Kharviv (300 km away).

“The terrorists occupied the offices of our stadium”, denounces a club employee

Where was its traditional social mass, that of all life in Donetsk and surroundings?

“In all places: in Ukraine, in Europe, in Russia…”, resolves an employee of the entity about a fact that has been turning Shakhtar into an anomaly for eight years.

Now Putin's planes

have exacerbated their crisis.

"The Shakthar is a symbol of the country," another worker finished on Monday at the gates of the stadium.

"I haven't been to my city and the stadium for three years, since 2014. The terrorists occupied the offices," he added resignedly together with Legia staff, who help them in the preparations for the Champions League matches that they play in Poland.

It was the natural destination, since this country has been the largest recipient of refugees (1.4 million there are now, according to Acnur) due to its geographical proximity, and its cultural and linguistic closeness.

In such circumstances, Shakhtar has become a banner of the Ukrainian resistance in the Champions League showcase.

"Glory to the heroes of the Azov [battalion]", was the inscription on the shirts with which the players went two weeks ago to play their league match against Metalist, with the superimposed face of a paramilitary who will pay for an operation In Israel.

And all this despite the fact that, in 2014, at the beginning of the conflict in Donbas, there were more than doubts about the position of the president and powerful businessman, Rinat Akhmetov, due to his past as a deputy of the pro-Russian Party of Regions.

Now, everyone's message leaves no doubt.

“I saw them crestfallen at breakfast”, comments the coach after the new Russian offensive

“Tomorrow [for Tuesday's match], the world has to see the strength of the Ukrainians as a nation.

We must do like the army: give light and positive emotions”, exclaimed this Monday the young goalkeeper Antolyn Trubin, 21 years old and born in Donetsk.

A good example from the club's last decade: he has never played a game at their stadium.

The atmosphere in the concentration oscillated between discouragement due to the latest bombings and the swollen patriotic chest.

“I have seen them crestfallen at breakfast”, confessed the coach, Igor Jovicevic, the best speaker for a crisis of this size.

“This is not just football.

We talk about life.

Europe has to help us”, claimed the Croatian with a Real Madrid past.

The upheaval has known no exceptions, not even in the wealthier neighborhoods of kyiv where the Shakhtar footballers lived on February 24, when Putin ordered the offensive.

There, goalkeeper Andriy Pyatov, 38, the second most capped player at the club (480), first made it to safety with his family in the west of the country and then thought of jumping into the bush.

"I had such a strong adrenaline rush that I called a friend to enlist in the army, but he convinced me that the best thing was to help on a social level, using my name", confessed a month ago in a Polish publication", confessed the goalkeeper , victim of all the house changes that the team has suffered.

It was later known about him that he was one of the founders of an association to help soldiers.

"I called a friend to enlist in the army," confessed goalkeeper Pyatov

His teammate Viktor Kornienko, a 23-year-old youth player now injured, also did not go to the front, although he was not far behind.

His youth prompted him at first to stay in his house, near Poltava and close to Kharkov (1.4 million inhabitants), where the attacks have been constant.

He himself told it on the ground in the first days of March.

“I patrol the streets, from six in the afternoon to six in the morning, so that the curfew is observed and strangers do not come.

I equipped a gym, I buy food and clothes, and I go to the territorial defense offices to ask what they need”, he then revealed in the official club media.

Another of the veterans, the pivot Taras Stepanenko (33 years and 365 games), has also dedicated himself to stewardship work, as he revealed in April: "We started buying bulletproof vests,

thermographic cameras and first aid kits.

We prepare them and give them at night to a person who knows where to take them.

With the uniforms it's harder, but we can handle it."

Each person in the club hides a story, even more so with a current squad almost exclusively made up of Ukrainians.

Ivan Petryak, 28-year-old left winger, lost his mother-in-law at the front;

a quarry technician died from a piece of projectile;

midfielder Artem Bondarenko (22) no longer wants to speak Russian;

The sports director and legend of the club, the Croatian Dario Srna, was first caught by the war in the Balkans, in 2014 in Donbas and now this…

A week ago, at the Bernabéu, practically no visiting fans displayed Shakhtar symbols.

They were all Ukrainian flags.

The entity, an example for a decade of a model based on the revaluation of young Brazilians, now survives as a patriotic banner in the Champions League.

"For these 20-year-olds [referring to the locker room], it is better for them to have a ball at their feet than a weapon in their hands," said one of the club's managers, Carlo Nicolini.

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