Shakhtar Donetsk continue to be estranged from their war-torn home but remain a Champions League quality side as they prepare to face Aberdeen in the Conference League.
Conference League: Aberdeen v Shakhtar Donetsk
Venue: Pittodrie Stadium, Aberdeen Date: Thursday, 2 October Kick-off: 20:00 BST
Coverage: Updates on BBC Radio Scotland Extra & Sounds, live text updates on the BBC Sport website & app
Cesc Fabregas wheeled away to celebrate a penalty shootout winner that sent Spain into the Euro 2012 final at Portugal's expense to the symphony of ecstatic football fans in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk.
Two years later, that sound was replaced with bombardment, gunfire and explosions.
Almost 50,000 people inside the impressive Donbas Arena that night, watching stars like Andres Iniesta and Cristiano Ronaldo, would scarcely have believed that one of the most expensive stadiums ever built in Europe would be derelict with weeds growing through poke-marked concrete and shattered glass lying strewn across its pathways so soon afterwards.
Once a symbol of footballing hope, the home of Shakhtar Donetsk has sat abandoned in occupied territory since 2017, structurally damaged by shelling.
Once the football club was forced to move more than 700 miles west to Lviv in 2014, the stadium was turned into a humanitarian aid centre, but after three years even that became unsustainable because of the unrest in the region amid tensions with Russia.
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Success despite every game being away
Shaktar's final match in the stadium, which once staged grand Champions League affairs with Barcelona and Real Madrid, was on 2 May 2014, a 3-1 win over Mariupol - a football club that no longer exists from a city that barely exists following the 2022 escalation and full-scale Russian invasion.
And yet football endures in Ukraine, albeit no further east than Kryvyi Rih, which lies about 40 miles from the nearest Russian stronghold in the country, and in front of largely empty arenas.
The reminder of what is happening in the country is never far away with matches occasionally interrupted by air raid alerts, with one of the hotels the Shakhtar squad stayed in last season hit by a missile.
For eastern clubs like Shakhtar, playing in exile for more than a decade has been hugely challenging as they prepare to visit struggling Aberdeen for their Conference League opener on Thursday.
In truth, every game they have played for 10 years has been an away game, with their European 'home' ties taking place in the Polish city of Krakow this season, more than 600 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Their continental adventures have given a sense of escapism from what is going on at home.
An example of that reality has been Shakhtar taking part in the Ukrainian Amputee Football Championship, which was launched amid a rising number of men afflicted by the conflict on the frontlines.
It says a lot about the strength of Shakhtar Donetsk that, despite their displacement, they have continued to enjoy success on the pitch.
Although they lost out on the title last season, they have won the Ukrainian championship six times since they were forced out of their home.
The last-ever Uefa Cup winners have also continued to operate well in European competition, regularly reaching the knockout stages of both the Champions League and Europa League.
Now, under new head coach and former Turkey, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid midfielder Arda Turan, they sit two points clear of defending champions Dynamo Kyiv, having made an unbeaten start to the season - save for a Europa League qualifying shootout defeat by Panathinaikos that landed them in this tournament for the first time.
A Champions League-quality squad
As has been the case for most of the past two decades, Shakhtar supplement local talent with Brazilian natives, although one of the latter, £14m signing Alisson Santana, will miss the trip to face the Dons after breaking a leg.
Captain and 79-times capped Ukraine centre-back Mykola Matvienko leads from the back, with exciting midfielder Artem Bondarenko a constant threat, having scored 12 goals and assisting with eight more last season.
Eighteen-year-old Brazilian midfielder Isaque, who joined from Fluminense in the summer, is looking to make a breakthrough in their maiden Conference League campaign, having scored his first goal for the club in Sunday's 4-0 hammering of Rukh Vynnyky.
Compatriots Kaua Elias and Pedrinho are both likely to start, up front and in midfield respectively, at Pittodrie, which could be ominous for Jimmy Thelin's side, with the latter grabbing a double at the weekend.
It is, to all intents and purposes, a Champions League team and they arrive in the Granite City as one of the favourites to win the competition.
They may be displaced, but Shakhtar's place in the Ukrainian and European footballing order prevails.
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Category: General Sports
