Shakhtar exiled from Donetsk
The ball strikes the back of the goal, the crowd swells, but not with its usual electricity. There are no fireworks, no orange smoke, no anthems are sung. The mere 2,000 fans present on March 14 in the 35,000-seat stadium to witness the Donetsk derby soccer match between Shakhtar and Olimpik only randomly rise and applaud. A group of youngsters lets out screams, but no organized chants. Absent are Shakhtar’s hard-core fans: the rowdy, shirtless and sometimes mask-clad crew of young men known as “ultras.”
The simple explanation for the above abnormalities is because the match took place not on the team’s home field in war-torn Donetsk, but 700 miles west in Lviv. Every aspect of life has been touched by Ukraine’s separatist war – even the sport of soccer.
Soccer clubs from Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol have been dislodged and relocated because of the fighting there, just like a vast number of the region’s population. Nearly half of Ukraine’s teams do not enjoy true home arenas this season. Among them is Shakhtar, living and practicing in Kyiv, while playing home matches in Lviv.
Arguably Ukraine’s greatest football club, Shakhtar Donetsk has not played on its own home field since May 2, 2014. The past five years this team has won Ukraine’s Premier League Championship, played in European competitions, including the UEFA Champions League, and won the UEFA Cup in 2009.
The club has the biggest budget and the biggest stadium (the $425 million Donbas Arena) thanks to its billionaire owner, Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov. The 70-year-old manager, Romanian Mircea Lucescu, is a proven winner with a legendary resume. The deep pockets and recent successes continue to attract quality international players from as far away as Brazil. Shakhtar’s roster has a 2:1 ratio of foreign vs. local talent.
Coming off its fifth consecutive league title last year, Shakhtar was set to be one of the top European franchises and a serious challenger for the UEFA Champions League Cup. Then war exploded in eastern Ukraine, and Donetsk went from a hustling million-person metropolis to an embattled center of fighting between Ukraine’s government forces and Russia-backed separatists.
In place of home football matches, Donbas Arena is home to humanitarian workers feeding displaced hungry civilians caught in a conflict claiming over 6,000 casualties since April 2014. In October 2014, shock waves from a rocket strike destroyed several stadium windows, narrowly missing innocent pedestrians.
The soccer team’s future today is as unsure as the outcome of the conflict itself. The situation is most unique – never has a team played one or two years away from home and continued to participate in the Champions League.
Pro-Western Lviv
The city of Lviv is very different from Russian-speaking Donetsk. A rich, centuries-long history of European influences left a renowned mix of architectural styles. The city of Donetsk can best be described as Stalin-era blocs with a few unimaginative high-rise glass business centers. Lviv is definitively pro-Western with Ukrainian, not Russian, the effectual language.
A powerful essence of patriotism is evident all over Lviv, from underground taverns to the street-side markets where artisans sell their crafts to raise money for the war effort. Blue-and-yellow national flags wave from most buildings, sometimes next to the red-and-black flag of nationalists.
It certainly shocked very few when Shakhtar Donetsk’s arrival in Lviv was greeted by some local residents with a bit of rancor, hanging signs from their new home field, the 35,000-seat Lviv Arena, that read “Get Out of Lviv!” The often-heard Ukrainians from the west don’t like their brethren from the east and vice versa manifested itself at this sporting event.
However, one must also believe that soccer fans from all of Ukraine, no matter their home city, support each other and their nation, and are all patriots of their land.
Filling the stadium in Lviv has been a huge challenge. It has become almost impossible to organize Shakhtar’s fans, scattered throughout the country after evacuating their homes. The team from Donetsk lives in Kyiv and plays its home matches in Lviv. It has turned into an uncomfortable paradox.
Poor attendance notwithstanding during the March 14 match, Shakhtar romped to an easy win, besting Olimpik 6-0. The game was one-sided as Olimpik was relegated up to Ukraine’s Premier League this year to fill a void created when Russia annexed Crimea, taking the region’s top soccer teams with it.
Some of the homegrown Shakhtar players enjoy the comforts of a plush Kyiv hotel after the match in Lviv, some 430 miles away from Donetsk, the home to which they cannot return. They may be temporarily residing in Kyiv, but the reminders of what’s happening in Donetsk are omnipresent. News of the war’s ongoing destruction is a staple on all television channels. Billboard signs request Ukrainian men to join army and national guard ranks to battle back the separatist insurgency in the east.
A year ago, the idea Shakhtar might not be able to go back and play in Donetsk never crossed anyone’s mind. Last summer, when the conflict reached its peak as rockets rained death down upon Donetsk, some of the players recognized they and their team may never return. They may never get back to their city, their stadium and their fans.
A delicate ceasefire agreed to by both warring sides does not forecast an imminent return. The temporary truce does little in regard to addressing the fundamental issues between Ukraine and the Russian-backed “separatists.” A victory for anyone involved in this conflict is still a long way off.
Ihor Stelmach may be reached at [email protected].