Several professional footballers playing in Ukraine, including Brazilians, have managed to leave the country and have been collected in Romania after asking their government for help in the face of the Russian invasion, the Shakhtar Donetsk club announced on Monday. “The Brazilian players of Shakhtar left Ukraine with their families (…) They crossed the border” on Monday, said the Ukrainian club in a press release, assuring that other players, from Dynamo Kiev, had also left the country for Romania.
These players and their families had gathered in recent days in a hotel in Kiev, including posting a video on the networks asking the Brazilian government to “support” them. “After 16 hours of travel, we have just crossed the border between Ukraine and Moldova. Now we have more than seven hours by bus to Bucharest, where we will embark for Brazil. (…) We are safe and sound, ”wrote in recent hours on Instagram Matheus Assaf, agent of the Brazilian player of Shakhtar Vinicius Tobias.
Shakhtar Donetsk, a regular at European cups and which has thirteen Brazilian players in its squad according to its official website, stressed that this departure had been made possible in particular by UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin and his counterparts from the Ukrainian Federations and Moldovan.
“The peace ended and the nightmare began”
The Italian coach of the Donetsk club, Roberto De Zerbi, also said he was “happy to return” to his country, in a video posted on Instagram, surrounded by his staff. “But we will never be happy until our Ukrainian players, our Ukrainian friends, and all the Ukrainian people, the great proud Ukrainian people, are as free as we are,” he added.
Carlos de Pena, a Uruguayan midfielder playing at Dynamo Kiev, also managed to leave Ukraine. In a text published on Twitter and Instagram on Monday, the 29-year-old center forward said he “woke up on February 24 at 4:55 a.m. to the sound of planes and bombs exploding in Kiev”.
“The peace ended and the nightmare began. In the streets, I saw people’s desperation, queues at supermarkets and ATMs, and people fleeing towards the border,” testified the Uruguayan.
In his account, De Pena explains that he and his Brazilian teammate Vitinho went to a hotel to take refuge with the Brazilian players with whom they joined Moldova.
“I was very scared, I hid and cried several times not to show my despair in front of others and to be strong,” revealed De Pena, who said “to pray for (his) teammates in Ukraine and their families and for all the Ukrainian people who are suffering from this terrible senseless thing”.
