It took two days of travel by train and buswith the elderly and children on board, for a group of Brazilian soccer players to dribble the war in Ukraine. They returned home relieved on Tuesdaybut with anguish and pain for those they left behind.
“I think the hardest thing was all that we saw on the road, people dying, people who had nothing to do with that situation. I had my four-month-old daughter with me and I just wanted her to be okay. Horror images, destroyed cities, that’s what sticks in your head,” says Pedrinho.
With a past at Corinthians de Sao Paulo and Benfica de Portugal, the 23-year-old attacker was one of the Brazilian players of the Ukrainian Shakhtar Donetsk who landed this Tuesday at the international airport of San Pablo, after a tour of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania .
“What I want most now is to be with my family, with my parents. He said goodbye every time he spoke to them, because he didn’t know if it would be the last time we spoke,” he says. “These were unfortunate scenes and I hope no one ever goes through something similar.”
The beginning of the “nightmare”
Frequent participant in the League of European Champions Shakhtar Donetsk He has carved out his lauded recent history (13 times Ukrainian champion in the last 20 years) with Pelé’s compatriots.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Last Thursday, there were 13 Brazilians on their squad, including the Ukrainian nationalized Junior Moraes. Together with their families and Vitinho and the Uruguayan Carlos de Pena, both from the Kiev Dynamo, they took refuge in a hotel in the capital, from where they asked the Brazilian government for help to leave the country.
Before the start of the war, there were about 500 Brazilians in Ukraine. Now about a hundred remain, according to records from the embassy in Kiev.
“Everything blew up overnight. Thursday morning when we were home, we began to hear the noise of the bombs, of the planes, From there the nightmare began,” De Pena, 29, who was waiting in Sao Paulo for his flight to meet up with his loved ones in Montevideo, told AFP.
In the capital hotel, whose bathrooms served as a hiding place for De Pena to cry when he received an emotional message from a relative or friend, they took shelter until Sunday.
“It was not so easy to coordinate a transfer because there were many desperate people, many people fleeing, Russian troops approaching the capital. From then on, feelings of all kinds, of fear, of sadness, of thinking that perhaps we were not going to come back Now it’s just gratitude for each message, for each person who made himself available”, points the charrúa.
In the hotel he shared with some field rivals, such as Marlon Santos, 26 years old.
“You could hear the fighters flying overhead, the noise of the bombs. Food began to run out. It was difficult to stay calm,” says the defender, who arrived in Rio de Janeiro.
Uncertain future
Three days after locking themselves in the hotel, on Sunday, the footballers and their families took a train with the help of UEFA after they were alerted that things “They were going to get much worse,” says Pedrinho.
They were 17 hours of rail transport and 15 by bus until reaching Romania, the starting point for different routes to Brazil.
“The exit was very dark, we did not know what we could cross on the way. We were going to travel at dawn, which is when there is more conflict,” recalls Maycon, from Shakhtar, who traveled in the company of his parents, wife and two children. .
“I only asked for calm so that my children would not feel what we were feeling”points disconsolate his partner, Lyarah Vojnovic Barberan.
Tired after a long and tense trip, the soccer players reunited with their relatives and left for different Brazilian cities.
With no clues about his future, due to the suspension of the Ukrainian league, his attention was focused on the teammates who were left in the war zone.
“Ukraine is suffering a lot and I am very sad about it,” says 24-year-old Maycon. “We have great friends there, we feel very sorry for them and I force myself so that everything is resolved”.
It took two days of travel by train and buswith the elderly and children on board, for a group of Brazilian soccer players to dribble the war in Ukraine. They returned home relieved on Tuesdaybut with anguish and pain for those they left behind.
“I think the hardest thing was all that we saw on the road, people dying, people who had nothing to do with that situation. I had my four-month-old daughter with me and I just wanted her to be okay. Horror images, destroyed cities, that’s what sticks in your head,” says Pedrinho.
With a past at Corinthians de Sao Paulo and Benfica de Portugal, the 23-year-old attacker was one of the Brazilian players of the Ukrainian Shakhtar Donetsk who landed this Tuesday at the international airport of San Pablo, after a tour of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania .
“What I want most now is to be with my family, with my parents. He said goodbye every time he spoke to them, because he didn’t know if it would be the last time we spoke,” he says. “These were unfortunate scenes and I hope no one ever goes through something similar.”
The beginning of the “nightmare”
Frequent participant in the League of European Champions Shakhtar Donetsk He has carved out his lauded recent history (13 times Ukrainian champion in the last 20 years) with Pelé’s compatriots.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Last Thursday, there were 13 Brazilians on their squad, including the Ukrainian nationalized Junior Moraes. Together with their families and Vitinho and the Uruguayan Carlos de Pena, both from the Kiev Dynamo, they took refuge in a hotel in the capital, from where they asked the Brazilian government for help to leave the country.
Before the start of the war, there were about 500 Brazilians in Ukraine. Now about a hundred remain, according to records from the embassy in Kiev.
“Everything blew up overnight. Thursday morning when we were home, we began to hear the noise of the bombs, of the planes, From there the nightmare began,” De Pena, 29, who was waiting in Sao Paulo for his flight to meet up with his loved ones in Montevideo, told AFP.
In the capital hotel, whose bathrooms served as a hiding place for De Pena to cry when he received an emotional message from a relative or friend, they took shelter until Sunday.
“It was not so easy to coordinate a transfer because there were many desperate people, many people fleeing, Russian troops approaching the capital. From then on, feelings of all kinds, of fear, of sadness, of thinking that perhaps we were not going to come back Now it’s just gratitude for each message, for each person who made himself available”, points the charrúa.
In the hotel he shared with some field rivals, such as Marlon Santos, 26 years old.
“You could hear the fighters flying overhead, the noise of the bombs. Food began to run out. It was difficult to stay calm,” says the defender, who arrived in Rio de Janeiro.
Uncertain future
Three days after locking themselves in the hotel, on Sunday, the footballers and their families took a train with the help of UEFA after they were alerted that things “They were going to get much worse,” says Pedrinho.
They were 17 hours of rail transport and 15 by bus until reaching Romania, the starting point for different routes to Brazil.
“The exit was very dark, we did not know what we could cross on the way. We were going to travel at dawn, which is when there is more conflict,” recalls Maycon, from Shakhtar, who traveled in the company of his parents, wife and two children. .
“I only asked for calm so that my children would not feel what we were feeling”points disconsolate his partner, Lyarah Vojnovic Barberan.
Tired after a long and tense trip, the soccer players reunited with their relatives and left for different Brazilian cities.
With no clues about his future, due to the suspension of the Ukrainian league, his attention was focused on the teammates who were left in the war zone.
“Ukraine is suffering a lot and I am very sad about it,” says 24-year-old Maycon. “We have great friends there, we feel very sorry for them and I force myself so that everything is resolved”.
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