“… It’s Monday evening and Shakhtar Donetsk’s chief executive officer sounds mildly disappointed that the team didn’t score a couple more goals against Livyi Bereh in the Ukrainian club’s first game back after the winter break. ‘We played well but we were not so lucky,’ Palkin adds. Shakhtar are third in the Ukrainian Premier League, eight points behind the leaders Dynamo Kyiv with a game in hand. Well, not a full game, actually. More like 39 minutes, and Shakhtar already have the lead courtesy of a goal from a player who is no longer at the club. Three days before Shakhtar were due to travel to the city of Kryvyi Rih for a game against Kryvbas at the start of September, the hotel where they had planned to stay was hit by a Russian missile, destroying the building and killing two people. A sense of panic spread among the Shakhtar squad, their families, and the players’ agents, leading to Palkin receiving a wave of anxious messages asking what the club proposed to do. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)