Shakhtar’s Darijo Srna: ‘They took my home in 2014 and now they want to do it again’

As Darijo Srna drove south-west from Kyiv, awful new versions of images that have never been too far below the surface flashed in front of his eyes. He was behind the wheel for 36 hours, briefly swapping places with a travelling companion but finding sleep impossible, and by the time he emerged from the car a combination of Red Bull and sheer adrenaline had taken him as far as Zagreb. “I saw a lot of difficult scenes along the roadside that put me back in 1990, back home in Croatia,” he says, hesitating slightly. “Children leaving their homes, lots of families with things packed in bags. Difficult moments. But we must believe everything will be OK. We don’t have another solution.”

Srna is safe and with his family but can think of little but Ukraine. He was an icon while playing at Shakhtar Donetsk, staying there for 15 years despite offers from far bigger European names, and has been their director of football since 2020. His love for the country and deep anguish at the atrocities needlessly inflicted upon it now are conveyed profoundly; those sentiments even more keenly felt given that, since the Yugoslavian war began, tragedy has been far too prominent a thread in Srna’s life.

“They wanted to take my home in 1990; they took it in 2014; now they want again to take my home, our home,” he says. “I think this is already too much.”

War has deprived Srna of people and places he loves. One of the latter is Donetsk, where he has not been since Russia-backed separatist groups ignited conflict in the Donbas eight years ago. Shakhtar, proud miners’ club of the region and 13 times national champions since 2002, have not been back since. “I left three days before they started bombing the airport in 2014. Already people had entered