Sport Matters

Anatoliy Trubin I was aware of Shakhtar Donetsk qualifying for the group stages of the current Uefa Champions League season. However, I expected the club from the Donbas region to finally throw in the towel and not show up, given the growing intensity of the war in their country.  However, after missing the club's earlier matches in Group F I finally got the chance to watch the "Miners" in action when they met Real Madrid in the Spanish capital on October 5. I was amazed by the youthful outlook of the team, fitness and competitive levels.  Champions Real sweat for their 2-1 win. It did not look like they were playing a team living in the shadow of a devastating war.  After it lost nearly its entire foreign legion who fled the war, the club had to find new ways to survive and honour its fixtures. But Shakhtar are made of a sterner stuff and are used to conflict and adversity more than most of the Ukraine. The club had been living and playing in exile since 2014 after Russi

Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana Earlier this week the suppoters of two of South Africa's biggest clubs, Mamelodi Sundowns and Kaizer Chiefs, engaged in a duel of wits which trended on Twitter about who between the two clubs' top strikers was going to win the local league's Golden Boot.  While Sundowns followers vouched for their goalgetter Peter Shalulile, the Chiefs legion punted their new striker Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana.  Namibian international Shalulile is the hottest goalpoacher in the South African league for the past three season for the champion club Sundowns, while the lanky Burundian simply known as Caleb is still new in the league. The pair is locked at 6 goals apiece at the top of the league charts, after 9 matches for Shalulile and after 10 matches for Caleb. My response to the debate is that, both Shalulile and Caleb add value to their clubs and the league but at the end of the day - or the current season in the context of the scoring race - whoever wins between th