While the Shakhtar Donetsk first team, and the Ukrainian Premier League at large, had conceived an improvised finish to 2013–14, the under-19 and under-21 seasons had just stopped. There needed to be a plan to resume for the following campaign and it was far from straightforward.
“The city was already taken by the separatists,” Miguel Cardoso, Shakhtar’s under-21 head coach and youth academy coordinator, says. “I went to Kyiv and far from home I discussed the situation with Sergei [Palkin, Shakhtar’s CEO]. He asked me: ‘Miguel, are you capable of going back to Donetsk?’” The club’s under-19 and under-21 teams were still in Donetsk, ready to begin their season. Cardoso quickly agreed to a task that he knew was big, but didn’t realise quite what an undertaking he had committed to until he was on the road.
