sport news Ukraine players in journey from Hell: It was a 450-mile road trip for some as ... trends now
For Ukraine, the road to Wembley started eight days ago when two of the kit men loaded the team’s equipment into a truck in Kyiv and set out on the first leg of the mission, a 450-mile road trip to the Polish city of Rzeszow.
At 7pm last Sunday, four players from Dynamo Kyiv and one from Oleksandriya, coaching staff, the medical team and various other members of FA staff, boarded an overnight train in the Ukrainian capital to carry them west into Poland.
Twelve hours later, across the border in Przemysl, they climbed into a bus and travelled a further 50 miles by road to Rzeszow where they met the kit men and 10 team-mates from Shakhtar Donetsk and Dnipro-1, clubs exiled in western Ukraine, and another from Oleksandriya, who had congregated in Lviv to depart by train at 5am on Monday.
There is no air travel in Ukraine, a consequence of the Russian invasion and ongoing war, and the logistics required if they are to compete for a place at Euro 2024 have become like a military operation. Unfortunately, they are well practised.
UEFA will not allow home games in Ukraine because of security concerns, so the clubs and national team have been hiring stadiums in neighbouring Poland for ‘home’ fixtures.
Ukraine's trip to England for the Euro 2024 qualifier was complicated by the ongoing war
After Shakhtar’s home leg of their Europa League last-16 tie against Feyenoord in Warsaw, it took them 18 hours to travel from the Polish capital to Chisinau in Moldova. They then went on by bus to the city of Kryvyi Rih in southern Ukraine to play Kryvbas KR in the Ukrainian Premier League on the following Sunday.
Then they were off again, out to Rotterdam, via Chisinau, for the second leg where, unsurprisingly, Feyenoord won 7-1. Back to Lviv they went, where Shakhtar are based this season, for a UPL fixture against Rukh Vynnyky.
Life is complicated and exhausting for Ukraine’s footballers, but they will not complain because they realise those fighting in the east against Russia’s invading troops are the genuine heroes. Their
