Ukraine's Shakhtar defy war to shine in Champions League

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 Russian invaded the coal-rich Donbas region, the precursor to the eventual invasion and war in the whole of Ukraine since February 24, 2022.

Shakhtar have had to find ways and means to honour their fixtures, like this past Wednesday when they hosted Real Madrid in Warsaw for the round 4 of Champions League fixtures. It's on record now that it had to take an effort of epic proportions by Antonio Rudger to equalise for the Spaniards in the final seconds.

The big Madrid centre-back stiches to fix his head afterwards, after collision with Shakhtar's ice-cool 21-year-goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin during the goalscoring effort.

Tomorrow, Shakhtar meet Dynamo Kyiv in the Ukrainian Premier League. The new season began in August after the previous season was abandoned before it ended due to the war.

Though most of the players of both Shakhtar and Dynamo live in Kyiv, which had offered some reasonable safety for long periods of the war, that relative safety was shattered by systematic missile strikes into the capital city in the past week.

The usually biggest football match in Ukraine will be played in Lviv.

Follow the action on live streaming platforms and see if how much the football has been affected by the war, if there would be any signs.

Comments

Rest in peace Zet, thanks for the good times

Legends. . . Zithulele Sinqe runs ahead of another roadrunning super star Willie Mtolo in 1986 Each time when I drive past ERPM in Boksburg, along Rondebult Road, one name springs to mind: Ernest Seleke. The association comes from the memory of Seleke running in a vest with ERPM emblazoned across the chest area. Back then, in the 1980s, I did not even know that ERPM was an abbreviation for a mine, and that the initials stood for East Rand Propriety Mine. To me ERPM was Seleke, not the gold mine it actually was. Stock, as the lithe running machine was known, was a marvel to watch on TV during that time of my schooldays. However, he was not alone among the crop of SA runners who were nurtured and sponsored by the mines to excel in their sport – both on track and on the road – at that time. There were many products of the mines and parastatals but I can immediately single out Xolile Yawa, Matthew Temane, Gibeon Moshaba, Matthew Batswadi, Ben Choeu and much later Zithulele Sin

Memphis shows how far we have fallen

Against all odds. . . Dutch forward Memphis Depay overcame a difficult childhood to shine on world stage. One of the unlikely stars of the Netherlands squad at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil is without a doubt winger Memphis Depay. He is used sparingly in the Dutch team, usually coming on as a second half substitute. The reason for that is clear: Depay is still being developed for big things in future. He started playing regularly at his club PSV Eindhoven only from last season. Secondly, he only turned 20 in February this year, so he still needs protected, gradual introduction to the senior national team. And after just eight caps for Oranje, he's doing all-right. Though the factors above are important to note, it is Depay's childhood which is more crucial to mention. He grew up without a father after his Ghanaian immigrant father left the family following divorce from Memphis' mother. Depay refers to this episode in his life by insisting to be called just Memphis,

The enemy within at Kaizer Chiefs

The new Premier Soccer League in South Africa is in its third week and already there's trouble at one of the biggest clubs, Kaizer Chiefs. The upheaval stems from within, thanks to the club's restless supporters. Restless is an understatement to describe a largely belligerent horde ready to trash and clobber, as they showed once again at Mbombela on Sunday 20 August after losing to TS Galaxy. Chiefs are not winning matches because they are goal-shy, scoring just 1 goal in their opening three matches of the league. That is not the scoring rate to win football matches. But instead of directing their anger to the team's forwards, and to some extent the rest of the outfield players, the supporters are blaming the coach and the goalkeeper. Chiefs No 1 keeper Brandon Peterson is a having a torrid time from the fans, despite his form saving the team from serious embarassment game after game. Against Galaxy last week a stopped four certain goal attempts, and earlier in the month

Sport Matters

Search This Blog