FC Shakhtar Donetsk

Shakhtar has appeared in several European competitions and is often a participant of the UEFA Champions League. The club became the first club in independent Ukraine to win the UEFA Cup in 2009, the last year before the competition was revamped as the Europa League. FC Shakhtar Donetsk is one of two Ukrainian clubs, the other one is Dynamo Kyiv, who have won a major UEFA competition. The club formerly played its home matches at the Donbass Arena, however, due to the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, the team has been relocated 600 miles to the west in Arena Lviv in the interim. Shakhtar Donetsk is Ukraine’s second most popular football club. The club is the sole favorite of football fans in the Donbas.

The club draws its history from the very start of the Soviet football league competitions and is one of the oldest clubs in Ukraine. The club was a member of the Soviet Voluntary Sports Society of Shakhtyor, having connections with other Soviet teams from Karaganda (Kazakhstan), Soligorsk (Belarus), among others. In the late Soviet period, Shakhtar was considered a tough mid-table club of the Soviet Top League and a cup competition specialist after winning the Soviet Cup two years in a row in 1961 and 1962.

The team has played under the following names: Stakhanovets (1936–46), Shakhtyor (Shakhtar) (1946–92), and FC Shakhtar (1992–present).

History

Early years – first two decades

The club Shakhtar was originally formed in May 1936 and was initially named Stakhanovets, meaning “the participant of Stakhanovite movement,” which derived from Aleksei Stakhanov, a coal-miner in the Donets basin and propaganda celebrity in 1935. The first team was based upon two other local teams, the participants of the All-Ukrainian Spartakiads: Dynamo Horlivka and Dynamo Stalino. The first game was unofficial against Dynamo Odessaand took place on 12 May 1936 at Balitsky Stadium in Horlivka. The team lost it 3–2 after scoring the first goal. Its first official game with Dynamo Kazan was even more disappointing, which they lost 4–1. Nonetheless, the selective job conducted constructively by the clubs administration allowed the club to compete successfully at the top level by the end of the 1930s. During the war championship of 1941, which was interrupted unexpectedly, the club defeated Soviet champions Dynamo Moscow and after about ten games were placed in fifth in the league. In the last game of that championship, played on 24 June, two days after the start of the Great Patriotic War, which they lost at home to Traktor Stalingrad.

The All-Union coal mining society of Stakhanovite had changed its name in July 1946 to Shakhtyor. In 1950, Viktor Fomin was named Ukrainian Footballer of the Year, despite the club finishing only 11th in the league. The first success for the team was in 1951, when it achieved third place in the USSR Championship. The most notable player of that achievement was the strikerAleksandr Ponomarev, who came to finish his football career in Donbass, the region he was born in, and was named Ukrainian Footballer of the Year for 1951. Despite the latest achievement, Shakhtar was relegated at the end of the 1952 season and as part of the re-organization of the team, former player Aleksandr Ponomarev became the head coach of the club. In 1954, Shakhtar under Ponomarev won the Class B League, thus sealing a return to the top league.

Cup triumphs and establishment in the Soviet League

In 1958, the players of the club received less yellow and red cards then any other team in the championship, for what the Sovetsky Sport newspaper awarded the club with the “Fair Play Award.” In the 1960s, Shakhtar, under Oleg Oshenkov’s coaching, were three-time USSR Cup finalists, winning it twice in 1961 and 1962. Among the players playing for the club then where defenders Viacheslav Aliabiev and Vladimir Salkov. The club was nicknamed “The Cup Team” due to Shakhtar’s success in vying for the trophy every year. The Miners’ more notable achievements, however, occurred later from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s.

Despite the departure of the team’s leader midfielder Anatoliy Konkov, in 1975, Shakhtar under management of former player Vladimir Salkov, earned second place in the USSR Championship and received the right to represent the Soviet Union in European competition. At the end of the season, Shakhtar received the Progress Cup for making the biggest progress from previous season in the league (they received the award again in 1977). In 1978, Shakhtar finished third in the USSR Championship. A year later, the team finished second in the league campaign and its captain—strikerVitaliy Starukhin—became the top scorer in the USSR Championshipwith 26 goals scored, also being named Soviet Footballer of the Year. The club was only two points away from the first place, despite having important players leaving the club before the season, and other important players receiving injuries. Other important players besides Starukhin at the time were Mykhaylo Sokolovsky, who went on to set a caps record for the club (for what he received the Club Loyalty Award in 1987), defenders Viktor Zvyahintsev and Valeriy Horbunov, who both made it numerous times to the 33 Top Players of the Soviet Championship lists, and goalkeeper Yuriy Dehteryov, who was named Soviet goalkeeper of the year and took third place for Soviet Footballer of the Year in 1977.

Shakhtar twice, in 1980 and 1983, brought home the crystal USSR Cup to Donetsk and in 1983, it won the USSR Super Cup over then-domestic league champions Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk. Shakhtar reached the 1983–84 European Cup Winners’ Cup quarter-final, and strikers Viktor Hrachov and Serhiy N. Morozov became joint top scorers of the tournament. In 1987, Shakhtar received the smallest amount of yellow and red cards in the championship, for which the club was awarded the “Soviet Top League Fair Play Award” by Man and Law magazine. Between 1982 and 1988, Shakhtar received the “Together With The Club” award five times, an award given for good organization of home games and behaviour of the home fans.

First decade in independent Ukraine – the beginning of the Akhmetov era

In the newly-independent Ukraine, Shakhtar, along with Dynamo Kyiv, became perennial first place competitors. In October 1995, a bombing-assassination took place at the team’s stadium, killing team President Akhat Bragin. In the year that followed, Rinat Akhmetov took over as president and subsequently invested heavily in the club.

Even though Shakhtar was not a contester for the championship at the time, finishing second many times with a large point gap from the first-place position, they won the Ukrainian Cup three times in 1995 (under the management of former player Vladimir Salkov),1997 and 2001. In the 1997–98 UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, Shakhtar were eliminated after a 5–2 aggregate loss to Italian club Vicenza, losing the first and second legs. Important players at the time were defenders Serhiy Popov and Mykhaylo Starostyak, goalkeeperDmytro Shutkov, striker Oleh Matveyev, who was top scorer of the Ukrainian Premier League in season 1996–97, and midfieldersHennadiy Orbu, Valeriy Kriventsov and Ihor Petrov. Most of the players playing for the team of the time came through the team’s youth ranks.

Towards the end of the decade, the team finally started to look like a team able to become champion. In 1999, a Shakhtar football academy was opened and now hosts football training for roughly 3,000 children. In 2000, Andriy Vorobey was named Ukrainian Footballer of the Year by Komanda, the first Shakhtar player in independent Ukraine to do so, and became the top scorer in the 2000–01 Ukrainian Premier League.

First league triumph

The club won its first ever Ukrainian Premier League title in the 2001–02 season under coach Nevio Scala, winning by a single point over Dynamo Kyiv. They were also victorious in the 2001–02 Ukrainian Cup, defeating Dynamo 3–2 after extra time in the Final. Among the key players at the club at the time were captain defensive midfielderAnatoliy Tymoschuk, strikerAndriy Vorobey, midfielder Hennadiy Zubov and defenderMykhaylo Starostyak. At the end of the season, Tymoschuk, who emerged as the club’s leader on the field, was named Ukrainian Footballer of the Year by Komanda and Ukrainskiy Football.

After multiple managerial changes, in 2004, the Romanian Mircea Lucescu was invited to build a team in Shakhtar. After ten days at the club, he won the 2003–04 Ukrainian Cup, and after three month, for the first time in club history, the club made it to the UEFA Champions League group stage, which won him the 2004 Romania Coach of the Year title. The strategy chosen was looking for young talented players in Brazil, which was to form the base of the attack, while the defence would supplied by largely Ukrainian talent in order to adjust to rules forcing teams to have a certain number of local players on the field. The large amount of Brazilians arriving to the club through the years earned Shakhtar the nickname “the most Brazilian club in Europe.” They won their second Premier League title in the 2004–05 season. They lost to Dynamo Kyiv in the inaugural Ukrainian Super Cup tournament in 2004. They finished as runners up in the 2004–05 Ukrainian Cup, losing to Dynamo in a penalty shoot-out the Final.

They retained the Premier League crown in the 2005–06 season and managed to avenge the defeat to Dynamo in the previous Super Cup by defeating them on penalties to win their first-ever Super Cup title. At the end of the season, Anatoliy Tymoschuk was named Ukrainian Footballer of the Year for by Ukrainskiy Football for the second time, becoming the first Shakhtar player to be named so more than once. Brazilian striker Brandão became the league’s joint top scorer.

Shakhtar appeared in all three editions of the Channel One Cup, winning the 2006 edition and finishing runners-up in 2008. Having missed out on the league title in 2006–07, Shakhtar regained the title in2007–08, also being victorious in the Ukrainian Cup after defeating Dynamo Kyiv 2–0 in the final. Shakhtar’s attendance levels at league matches have continually risen over the years to a point where they averaged 36,983 spectators over the 2011–12 Premier League season.

UEFA Cup triumph and domination in Ukraine

In 2009, they became only the second Ukrainian team to win a European competition (and the first since independence), and the first to win the UEFA Cup after defeating Werder Bremen in the final, with goals from Brazilians Luiz Adrianoand Jádson. The victory earned the player Mariusz Lewandowski the 2009 Polish Footballer of the Year award. This also made them the last UEFA Cup winners before the tournament was rebranded as the UEFA Europa League.

Before the start of the 2009–10 season, Shakhtar won the friendly Uhrencup tournament. Shakhtar won the Premier League title in the 2009–10 season, goalkeeper Andriy Pyatov was named Ukraine Premier League MVP by Komanda, and Manager Mircea Lucescu was named Romania Coach of the Year for the second time. The 2010–11 season was a very successful one for Shakhtar. They reached the quarter-final stage of the Champions League, their then-best-ever performance in the competition. Captain Darijo Srna was chosen to be part of the Champions League team of the season as voted by fans. They also won a domestic treble with victory in the Premier League, Ukrainian Cup and the Super Cup. The successful season didn’t go unnoticed by the experts, and in 2011, the IFFHS gave Shakhtar a special award for making the biggest progress of the decade among football clubs. They then went on to win the Premier League and Ukrainian Cup in the 2011–12 season. Shakhtar player Yevhen Seleznyov topped the goal scoring charts in the league, with 14 goals, midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan was named Armenian Footballer of the Year, and manager Mircea Lucescu was named 2012 Romania Coach of the Year, receiving the award for the third time. The main players at that time were captain Darijo Srna, defender Yaroslav Rakitskiy, Armenian midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan (who was named Armenian Footballer of the Year twice while playing for Shakhtar) and Brazilian midfielders Fernandinho and Willian.

In the 2012–13 season Shakhtar won the Premier League, Cup and Super Cup. Henrikh Mkhitaryan became the top scorer of the league, setting a Ukrainian championship record of 25 goals. Mkhitaryan was also named the Ukraine Premier League MVP by Komanda, Armenian Footballer of the Year and the CIS Footballer of the Year for 2012.

Leaders depart, new titles and War in Donbass

Before the 2013–14 season, many of the main players of the club were sold after Shakhtar accepted high bids on them. Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Fernandinho and Willian brought the club over €100 million, and Shakhtar spent the following summer trying to integrate new young players into the team, who along with the remaining players were to form the backbone of the renewed Shakhtar. Despite selling its leaders, before the 2013–14 season, Shakhtar set a new record for East Europe for number of season tickets sold. Before the beginning of the 2013–14 season, Shakhtar won two friendly tournaments in Abu Dhabi, the Match World Cup, and the Super Cup of Champions played against the Russian champion Zenit Saint Petersburg. In the mid-season break, Shakhtar won the 2014 United Supercup (the second edition of the United Tournament), a tournament between the top-two placed clubs of Ukraine and of Russia, which strengthened Shakhtar’s status as the strongest club in Eastern Europe. At the end of the 2013–14 season, Shakhtar won the Ukraine Premier League, while Luiz Adriano was the league top scorer. Shakhtar also won the 2014 Ukrainian Super Cup, holding the trophy for the sixth time. Manager Mircea Lucescu was named the 2014 Romania Coach of the Year, receiving the award for the fourth time.

Due to the War in Donbass, Shakhtar had to temporarily move and play its games in Arena Lviv. That resulted in very low attendance. As an anti-war protest, the players of Shakhtar refused the initiative to wear the “Glory to the Ukrainian Army” shirts. In the2014–15 UEFA Champions League, Shakhtar finished second in the group stage, therefore qualifying to the next stage. Striker Luiz Adriano equaled both Lionel Messi’s record of five goals in a Champions League match and Cristiano Ronaldo’s record of scoring nine goals in the group stage; as a result, UEFA named him MVP of the competition’s group stage. Shakhtar finished the season second in the 2014–15 Ukrainian Premier League after playing the whole season away from Donbass, with Alex Teixeira finishing as a joint top scorer in the league. At the end of the season, Douglas Costa was sold to Bayern Munich, while Luiz Adriano moved to Milan.

During the 2015-16 Ukrainian Premier League, on 16 October, Shakhtar beat FC Dynamo Kiev 0–3 in Kiev and set two new records. One record was that for the first time during a Ukrainian derby game in Kiev a team scored three goals. The other record was that for the first time Shakhtar had more Ukrainian derby victories, 26, than Dynamo. In the middle of the season, Alex Teixeira moved to ChineseJiangsu Suning F.C. for a fee of 50 million Euro, breaking both the Asian and Ukrainian transfer record.