London calling for Shakhtar Donetsk at new adopted home in Champions League

GENEVA (AP) — In a Champions League season where every game is far from home again, Shakhtar Donetsk next heads from Ukraine to its new adopted home in London .

Shakhtar opened its eight-game program on Thursday with a 1-1 draw at PSV Eindhoven that was a shorter journey to the Netherlands for the team than its four upcoming “home” games at Chelsea’s stadium.

Real Madrid is the prize visitor in January at the venue that, for two decades, was the realm of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. He was forced to sell Chelsea in 2022 under pressure from British government sanctions after the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.

When Shakhtar first uses 40,000-seat Stamford Bridge, facing AEK Athens on Oct. 14, the journey for the “home” team will be at least four times more than for the visitor from Greece.

“We need like 19 or 20 hours to come from (Ukraine) to London,” Shakhtar sporting director Darijo Srna told reporters in a recent briefing.

Still, being in the Champions League — for the fourth time in five seasons during the war — with the potential to earn tens of millions of dollars in UEFA prize money is crucial for club finances when revenue has all but disappeared from domestic soccer.

Champions League action in England, after hosting previous Champions League games in Poland and Germany, also is a showcase for Shakhtar’s long-time specialty of buying young Brazilian talent for future transfers. That business model is back after the club lost a generation of talent in 2022 when the war started.

The Shakhtar lineup on Thursday at PSV was back to having the Brazilian flavor that is its trademark.

When a Shakhtar team captained by Srna won the 2009 UEFA Cup final, just before the Europa League rebrand, his teammates included Fernandinho and Willian. The goals in a 2-1 win over Werder Bremen were scored by two more Brazilians, Luiz Adriano and Jádson.

On Thursday, the starting lineup featured Isaque, Kauã Elias and Alisson Santana. On the bench were Lucas Ferreira, and Luca Meirelles. None is yet 21 years old and all arrived from Brazilian clubs for transfer fees from about 10-17 million euros ($11-20 million).

“They are future stars,” Srna said. “Because of that, also for us it’s important to play in London to show(case) them.”

The ideal Shakhtar deal is perhaps Brazilian forward Kevin, bought from Palmeiras in January 2024 for less than 15 million euros ($17.4 million) and sold one year ago to Fulham for 40 million euros ($46.4 million).

“We know how to work with them,” Srna said of Shakhtar’s reputation for taking care of young players far from Brazil. Even now that means living in a country at war, 12 years after the club was exiled from Donetsk by Russian incursions into eastern Ukraine.

Shakhtar is now based in Lviv near Ukraine’s western border with Poland. Its next Champions League week in October starts on the Saturday with a domestic league game at nearby Veres Rivne.

Games in mostly empty stadiums often are disrupted by alerts of possible incoming Russian missiles. “It’s exhausting, it’s not easy to play the games,” Srna said.

“We start by bus (then) train, plane, bus,” he said of the journey to London. It can take 14 hours to get to Poland capital Warsaw after security checks at the border. “It's really difficult.”

Shakhtar has an inspirational coach in Arda Turan. He played 100 times for Turkey, won the Spanish league with Barcelona and helped Atletico Madrid reach the 2014 Champions League final.

“He doesn’t care about the war, he adapted himself better than anyone,” Srna said about the 39-year-old coach now in his second season with the club.

“He is an amazing guy, a little bit crazy,” Srna said with a smile about Turan, noting his similar reputation as a player “in a positive way. He is a child of Galatasaray.”

Galatasaray’s great and currently chaotic city rival in Istanbul, Fenerbahce, plays Shakhtar in London in November.

The upside for Shakhtar in London also is about business for Ukraine and the club’s owner of the past 30 years, Rinat Akhmetov .

Akhmetov's industrial conglomerate, SCM, is Shakhtar's shirt sponsor with steel and energy interests it wants to market to London's financial center.

“From one side, it is support for Ukraine," SCM executive Natalya Yemchenko said. "For the other side, it’s an investment in European energy security.”

Akhmetov built the Donbas Arena, a spaceship-like stadium that opened in 2009, hosted 2012 European Championship games, and Shakhtar had to leave behind in 2014. Returning one day is the club's ultimate dream.

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