Ukraine competes after three months of war with Russia

The Ukrainian Premier League there should be resumed its activity after the traditional winter break February 25. However, a day earlier Russia’s invasion of its neighboring country began and the league He stopped. A month later, the league was terminated with twelve days to go. But it was not the only competition that had to be suspended due to the war. Ukraine and Scotland they should have played on March 24 the semifinals of the World Cup repechage. Today, with the war still active, that match will be played.

The Ukrainian team arrives at this meeting in special conditions. Unlike their rivals, they did not focus on the March FIFA date. But now they have been preparing this game for a month. The players were summoned on April 30 and they were arriving little by little. This month they have been training at Brdo Castle, the home of the Slovenian Football Federation. “This place has become a real home for the blues and yellows for a month, a refuge in times of war”comments the Ukrainian Federation.

During this month, the team has played three friendly matches. All of them without the 10 players who belong to clubs outside of Ukraine (Lunin, Mykolenko, Sobol, Kacharaba, Yarmolenko, Zinchenko, Malinovskyi, Zubkov, Yaremchuk y Sikan) of the 25 of the call. These have been joining the concentration as they finished their respective leagues after completing their season normally. And the results have been really good: two wins against Mönchengladbach and Empoli and a draw against Rijeka.

These players, who have not played for the national team since November 16, have not played a competitive game since mid-December. Meanwhile, and with a space of time in which they took the opportunity to defend their country with videos of support and requests for international help, they have only played friendlies. Shakhtar Donetsk have played five games between April and May. Dynamo kyiv, seven.

Instead, others like Dnipro-1 or the Vorskla Poltava have not played and footballers have taken different paths. From the first, the Dnipro-1, foreigners have left from the country, Ukrainians have stayed to engage in volunteer projects and President Maksym Bereza joined the army as a private. Some players accepted the option of temporarily leaving for another club, such as Nélson Monte, a Portuguese central defender from the aforementioned Dnipro-1 who signed for Almería. His partner, the Spanish Marc Gual, left on loan to Jagiellonia from Poland. But the idea is that they return to their club in the event that the war ends and they can play next season. Last Friday, the Ukrainian Premier League met to agree that this 2022-23 has a special regulation. Also, there was unanimous support for Desna and Mariupol to remain in First Division despite the fact that the war has destroyed their infrastructure.

This game will come back serve ukraine for to remember to Europe that any help in the conflict it is little. Yaremchuk was already in charge of remembering it after playing against Empoli, a match in which they came out with European Union flags: “This country is going in the right direction, we are all in the EU. We see support from the EU, but we want more. We have a very tough invader, we must do everything possible so that people see that we want to live with Europe, develop like them. That’s why it’s important to take initiatives like this.”