Shakhtior Donetsk: Football Must Go On

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Shaktar.Football.Must.Go.On.ENG.twb22.mp4

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Shakhtar Donetsk haven’t played a home game in more than eight years. The club team, based in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, was forced to relocate after the 2014 Russian invasion and subsequent occupation of the Donbas region. Since then, they’ve played and trained in other parts of Ukraine, including the western city of Lviv, the northeastern city of Kharkiv, and the capital of Kyiv.Prior to the war, they’d been a team on the rise. In 2009, they became only the second Ukrainian club team to win a European competition when they captured the UEFA Cup (now the Europa Cup). In more recent years, Shakhtar’s management continued their success by employing a canny strategy of signing developmental talent from countries like Brazil and selling their contracts to larger clubs once they experienced on-field results.

That all changed with Russia’s invasion in 2022, which saw thirteen of the team’s Brazilian players flee the country, fearing for their lives. The team had plans to stay afloat by selling the contracts of valuable players–a common tactic in club football–until a decision came down from FIFA, the sport’s governing body, stating that players could break contracts with Ukrainian clubs without penalty, leading many to leave for new clubs without Shakhtar receiving any compensation for their investments.“Half the squad is disappeared,” one football journalist explains. “Essentially, [the club’s football director] Darijo Srna is charged with building a new Shakhtar Donetsk team.” The team is forced to move games to Poland, and restock their roster with younger, unproven and mostly-local players. By the time the 2022-23 UEFA Champions League competition begins, as one journalist notes, “the fact that they’re here at all is a victory.”

Team captain Taras Stepanenko speaks ruefully of the hardships he, his teammates and their families have had to face. “It’s an unpredictable situation, and in my mind, I can’t cope with it. I’ve already moved from my home two times. The first feeling was, it’s temporary, and I’d come back, but it’s already been eight years. It’s the first time I lived without my family, and it’s very difficult for me mentally.”Football Must Go On tells a compelling story in a way that’s intense and engrossing without becoming schlocky or sentimental; this is a real story about people facing real hardships, and it doesn’t need to resort to pablum to inspire you–the hard truth is inspiring enough.