For others who worked there, Ukraine is a beautiful country with wonderful people. But for Paulo Fonseca, Ukraine is the second home, literally. The Portuguese came to Ukraine in 2016, as he took over their biggest club – Shakhtar Donetsk, and left in 2019, as he was appointed Roma coach. In those three years, he won the league and the cup each year, and reached the round of 16 of the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League. He also got married with a Ukrainian wife and the pair have children, and live in Kyiv. He had a plane ticket on the day when Russia started the attack, and he was waken up early by the bombs. Former Roma coach trapped in Ukraine: ‘The worst day on my life’And then his life drama started. The first reaction for Paulo and his family was to immediately leave the apartment and try to escape by car, but they found out very quickly that the roads were jammed. In a talk with Sky Sports, Fonseca revealed he got an offer from his former player, now the sporting director of Shakhtar, Dario Srna, who offered shelter in Donetsk.“Dario called me and said to come to the hotel owned by the president of Shakhtar. We moved to the hotel there and stayed in a bunker there overnight, for one and a half days overall, with the Brazilian players from Shakhtar and the technical team. I started to think the situation was only going to get worse so we contacted the Portuguese embassy and they said, ‘Tomorrow we’ll have a car and you can go’. I decided to leave in the morning, the day after the car picked us up from the hotel and we started a long trip to the border. It was dangerous, we travelled all day and night without stopping. The journey was 30 hours, more including across the border with Moldova to where we were staying in Romania. I saw many times the troops of Ukraine pass on the road, we stopped and listened to the alarms many times, and there was a lot of traffic” explained Fonseca. These are sad times when football has become irrelevant for footballersThe Portuguese once again appealed on everybody to stop the war in his second home. “We spent a lot of time going 5 kmph. During the trip, of course, we were in danger even driving in the night, and I heard the planes passing, but I didn’t see shooting or fighting. We travelled with another family, a couple with a six-month-old baby. In the end, we arrived on the border and felt safe, which was the most important thing. These people, this country, doesn’t deserve what is happening. But they are heroes, they are fighting, and it’s really difficult for us to see the situation in Ukraine … I’m seeing all Europe trying to help everyone, I understand the political situation, but I have to say it’s not enough. I don’t know what more we can do, but we have to do more – or they will all die” said Fonseca.
