Just playing is a small victory for Shakhtar Donetsk but the Ukrainian champions won’t stop there. Team captain Taras Stepanenko tells The Associated Press that Shakhtar’s opening Champions League game against Porto is part of his team’s duty to represent Ukraine and show his country’s resilience.
Just getting to Hamburg took an “absolutely difficult” 10-hour journey, Stepanenko said, mostly by bus because Ukraine’s airports have been closed since the invasion. After winning a Ukrainian league game Saturday, the team drove to Poland from the border city of Lviv, spent about three hours getting through the border, then caught a flight from Poland to Hamburg. It’s technically a home game for Shakhtar, but the away team will get there much faster from Portugal.
“It’s really, for us, difficult sometimes to compare yourself. You’re in good conditions, you play football and these guys are supporting you during the war.” One of Stepanenko’s teammates is 36-year-old former Barcelona defender Dmytro Chygrynskyy, who first joined Shakhtar in 2002. Last year, he was playing in Greece when Russia invaded, and he rejoined Shakhtar for this season to add experience to the team and mentor the many young players from the Shakhtar academy in the squad.
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