![]() Shakhtar will restart the domestic league in second place, behind Dnipro. Maybe for 90, 95 minutes the people forget their problems. It’s difficult to control your emotions, but you’re playing football in the territory of Ukraine and you’re sending the message that life is going on. Such an imposition hardly compares to life on the front line of course, not when players used the winter break to complete a training camp on Turkey’s south coast, safe from the destruction wreaked by last week’s earthquake.īut Jovicevic admits the pressure can get to him, particularly when live streams of games provide Ukrainians with a brief distraction from war. Oleksandriya was halted, players spent three hours beneath ground without electricity before completing the game. Territory and sometimes force the squad to take cover several times a day. Ivan Petryak, their experienced midfielder, lost his father-in-law in May after theĤ8-year-old rejected the family’s appeals not to take up arms.Īir-raid sirens sound as soon as a missile is launched from enemy ![]() A youth coach was killed within a fortnight of the first Russian invasion. It shows you that sometimes in football, money is not important to make success.’ ‘For this generation, the new Shakhtar, it is unbelievable. Jovicevic is rightly proud of their progress. Jovicevic (left) admitted players have struggled at times Jovicevic woke up to discover his players in tears, unable to locate loved ones who had taken refuge in shelters without access to the internet. On the day before the match, Russia launched a brutal assault on Kiev. In October, they hosted holders Real Madrid. Sticking to a carefully organised 4-3-3 and playing with the same attacking intent that De Zerbi’s Brighton have shown, they opened their European campaign with a remarkable 4-1 victory away to RB Leipzig, an achievement that Jovicevic puts down to ‘not wanting to disappoint 45 million people’. Over the past year, they have played in the capital and trained in Lviv, while playing Champions League ties in Warsaw, travelling 11 hours by coach to Poland to catch flights to away games as Ukraine's airspace is closed. ![]() Shakhtar had already been in exile from Donetsk since war broke out in the Donbas in 2014, moving to Lviv and then Kharkiv before settling in Kyiv in 2020. Jovicevic will lead Shakhtar into their Europa League knockout clash with Rennes on Thursday The most popular destination was Uzhhorod, close to Slovakia and sheltered by the Carpathian Mountains. Sides based close to the worst fighting, such as Kharkiv’s Metalist and Chornomorets Odessa, relocated to the west of the country. I had been hearing about them for years before.’Įlite athletes were exempted from both the national conscription and the law banning men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country, but every club except Dnipro chose to remain in Ukraine. I was convinced that they were talented young guys. ‘I knew it would be a big challenge,’ he says. ![]() Jovicevic could easily have chosen to stay with his wife and two sons in Croatia, but the prospect of helping Ukraine ‘from the inside’ was too strong to resist.Įspecially when Shakhtar offered him the opportunity to replace Roberto De Zerbi, providing him with the opportunity to coach in the Champions League for the first time.įIFA’s decision to allow foreign players to leave Ukraine clubs without a transfer fee meant Jovicevic lost all the club’s foreign legion, including 12 Brazilians and Manor Solomon, an Israeli, to Fulham.īy then the club’s recruitment department numbered only two scouts, but the task still emboldened the new coach. He knew the domestic game well enough to recruit some of its best homegrown players and was encouraged by the prospect of working with Shakhtar’s own crop of emerging talent, not least Mykhailo Mudryk, Chelsea’s recent £88million recruit. We have a synergy with each other and we keep going with this emotion.’ We want to make them proud, from deep in our hearts, they make us proud, fighting for our freedom. ‘My players and I understand we are playing for the Ukraine people. ‘It’s because we know for who we are playing,’ he says, on an hour-long video call with The Mail on Sunday. Jovicevic has endured a crazy time in charge of the Ukrainian side and has been forced into dealing with chaotic circumstances
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