Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk have not played in their home city since 2014. The underground car park of their ground in Donbas is being used by the Russians to store weapons. They have endured an exodus of star players, including the sale of winger Mykhailo Mudryk to Chelsea last month.
But in a win over the French side Rennes, Shakhtar Donetsk have gatecrashed their way into the last 16 of the Europa League.
After a 5-4 victory, powered by three saves from goalkeeper Anatolii Trubin during the penalty shootout, Shakhtar will play a match in Poland and could face heavyweight clubs such as Arsenal and Roma.
Shakhtar’s coach Igor Jovicevic hailed the win, which comes on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion, as a “victory for Ukraine”.
“It was very important. This match was for you, Ukraine, it was for our country, for Ukraine,” said Jovicevic. “We were in the game until the end. You could almost say that we died on the pitch, that we left our arms and legs there. This victory is a reward for our work.”
Shakhtar have not played in Donetsk since April 2014, when conflict between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas and Luhansk regions forced the team to stage “home” league matches in Lviv, 1,200km away. Their European matches are played on neutral ground in Warsaw.
“Psychologically, it can destroy you,” Jovicevic told ESPN last year. “After the game, we have a 10-hour journey home. For other teams, it is rest, they can go to the jacuzzi, have a massage, go to the barbecue with their family. No other team in Europe has to do it like us – we are travelling all the time, so there is a real accumulation of mental and physical fatigue.
“It is unreal what we have had to do. We train, then think about shelters and bunkers, our troops fighting for us. And then we have to think about Leipzig.”
Shakhtar Donetsk’s home stadium, Donbas Arena, has been abandoned since 2014. Donbas has been under martial law since 2022 and stands largely in ruins today, with much of its prewar population of 920,000 seeking refuge in west Ukraine, Poland, Moldova and Romania.
Even when Chelsea signed Mudryk, the war effort came first for the proud club. Club president Rinat Akhmetov donated $25m of the $105m fee to the “Heart of Azovstal”, a project aimed to help families of Ukraine’s fallen soldiers.
“I am allocating $25m today to help our soldiers, defenders and their families,” Akhmetov said. “The money will be used to cover different needs, from providing medical and prosthetic treatment and psychological support to meeting specific requests. We are forever indebted to our soldiers!”
Shakhtar Donetsk will now head into the rarefied air of the Europa League last 16. “Respect to my players, I’m proud of them,” said Jovicevic. “It’s my dream that my team can one day play in a home stadium full of fans. The next round now gives us the opportunity to see them again, they give us strength.
“Without European competition, we wouldn’t go to Warsaw. Personally speaking, if we had been eliminated tonight, I would not have seen my family until at least June,” the emotional coach said. “It’s already a very difficult situation to live to the rhythm of the bombardments, the sirens. We have to think about tactics but above all we want to wake up alive in the morning.”
