Frontline football: ‘We try to show the same fight as the Ukrainian soldiers fighting for us’

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Shakhtar Donetsk and their fans tell of their pride in the club that keeps on playing at its adopted home and in Europe

Celtic Park in Glasgow is among the most partisan football grounds in Europe – you don’t want to be on the wrong end of this crowd. But Celtic fans know the world, and last September was different: home supporters lined the approach to the stadium, to greet and applaud the visitors’ coach as it arrived for a big night in the Champions League. Aboard it: Shakhtar Donetsk, the Ukrainian champions who had not played a game at home for nine years, since Russian separatists and armed forces occupied their city in 2014.

The crowd cheered the bus, and – poignantly – among the home fans’ Irish tricolours were flags of blue and yellow, those of Ukraine, waved by a group of children – refugees from the war that ravages their homeland, now settled in Glasgow.

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from Football | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/feb/18/frontline-football-we-try-to-show-the-same-fight-as-the-ukrainian-soldiers-fighting-for-us

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