Alex Teixeira, Douglas Costa, Fernandinho, Fred, Luiz Adriano, Willian: the list of Brazilian players who started their European career at Shakhtar Donetsk is long. They then all left for other, more upscale destinations in Manchester, Munich or Milan. The club made a lot of money from transfers. Fred and Alex Teixeira alone brought in more than 100 million euros.
But after the start of the war, FIFA allowed foreign players to suspend their contracts with the Russian invasion and be able to leave the club without compensation. For Shakhtar, this resulted in a loss of tens of millions of euros.
Wanderings across the country
Shakhtar has now been homeless for ten years. This proud club, founded in 1936 by miners from Donbass and winner of the UEFA Cup in 2009, was forced to leave its country at the start of the 2014/15 season after the annexation of Crimea by Vladimir Putin and due to the latent conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The club first went into exile in Lviv, near the Polish border. Lacking support on the other side of the country, Shakhtar moved closer to its home region of Kharkiv, finally playing its home matches in the capital kyiv. After the arrival of Russian troops in February 2022, the club once again withdrew to Lviv.
Shakhtar’s last real big home match took place in the spring of 2014. Since then, the Donbass Arena, inaugurated in 2009 and which hosted five Euro 2012 matches, has been abandoned. The 52,000-seat stadium, the pride of the region and classified by UEFA in the highest category with five stars, was seriously damaged in August 2014 during fighting between Ukrainian units and Russian separatists.
3rd European season abroad
Despite the war, Shakhtar plays its home matches in Lviv. But for the European Cup, the club must move further west. In the first year of the war, Warsaw hosted the Champions League home matches. And a year ago, the Ukrainians played in Hamburg. This season, Shakhtar is playing in the Ruhr in Gelsenkirchen, in the stadium of Schalke 04, who are now fighting in the second Bundesliga.
They are happy to be able to play their matches in “one of the best stadiums in Germany”, said the club’s general director, Sergei Palkin. He added that positive experiences last season had shown that his club enjoyed strong support from local fans and Ukrainian refugees.
The first home match attracted 21,636 spectators. During the 3-0 defeat against Atalanta, winner of the Europa League, Shakhtar, only 3rd in the league, had no chance. After three European evenings, the Ukrainian champion has only one point, one more than Young Boys, who travel to Gelsenkirchen on Wednesday. This fourth meeting is therefore important for the rest of the campaign.
The Ukrainians still have many Brazilians in their squad. Their names are no longer Fernandinho, Douglas Costa or Willian, but Kevin, Marlon Gomes and Pedrinho. But so far, none of them have scored in the Champions League.
