‘Donetsk was a ghost city’: Shakhtar youth coach’s unique tale of endurance | Andy Brassell

In this extract from his new book, Andy Brassell talks to Miguel Cardoso, who carried on coaching academy players in Ukraine during the war in Donbas

While the Shakhtar Donetsk first team, and the Ukrainian Premier League at large, had conceived an improvised finish to 2013–14, the under-19 and under-21 seasons had just stopped. There needed to be a plan to resume for the following campaign and it was far from straightforward.

“The city was already taken by the separatists,” Miguel Cardoso, Shakhtar’s under-21 head coach and youth academy coordinator, says. “I went to Kyiv and far from home I discussed the situation with Sergei [Palkin, Shakhtar’s CEO]. He asked me: ‘Miguel, are you capable of going back to Donetsk?’” The club’s under-19 and under-21 teams were still in Donetsk, ready to begin their season. Cardoso quickly agreed to a task that he knew was big, but didn’t realise quite what an undertaking he had committed to until he was on the road.

Continue reading…

About Author