sport news In Roberto De Zerbi Brighton are appointing a brave man trends now
In London, Liverpool had beaten Chelsea on penalties to win the Carabao Cup. In Brighton, Graham Potter’s team were stuck in a rut of six successive defeats. In Kyiv, Roberto De Zerbi received a phone call.
It was almost midnight on Sunday, February 27 — three days after Russia’s invasion — and De Zerbi and eight Italian members of his coaching staff at Shakhtar Donetsk were sheltering in the underground bunker of the Opera Hotel, unable to sleep amid artillery fire, when they were told they had 10 minutes to leave.
They had helped their terrified Brazilian players flee from the war with their young families the previous day and now it was their turn to step out and make their escape from a city under attack.
Brighton have confirmed the appointment of Italian manager Roberto De Zerbi (pictured)
‘The streets were deserted but there was the risk of running into Russian saboteurs,’ De Zerbi told Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.
‘We waited for an hour before getting on the train. After nine hours we reached Lviv where a bus was waiting for us.
‘We got on the bus with an escort, but it was a nightmare. After a short journey, we took another coach that took us towards Hungary. For the last few kilometres we were moving at walking pace. It was snowing.’
Twenty hours after the dash from the Opera they reached the Hungarian border to find Ukrainian police waiting to give them hot food as they spent an hour going through checks, before continuing for another three hours by bus through the snow to Budapest.
The Italian was previously in charge of Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk but was forced to flee the country after the Russian invasion in February
‘Ukraine was behind me and I turned around to get my last glimpse of the country where we had arrived last summer, for an important stage of our careers,’ said De Zerbi. ‘It was an extraordinary human adventure.
‘I thought about the players. The Brazilians were safe but
