Shakhtar Donetsk came from behind to beat AEK Athens 3-1 at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night, with 29,144 fans turning out to watch the Ukrainian club host a Champions League match roughly 2,000 miles from its real home in Donetsk, the furthest the club has ever played a home fixture.
Lovro Majer put AEK ahead before Pedrinho equalised from the penalty spot. AEK goalkeeper Alberto Brignoli then put the ball into his own net, and substitute Gleiker Mendoza added a third for Shakhtar to seal the 3-1 win.
Shakhtar chose London after shortlisting three grounds for the season, Fulham's Craven Cottage, Brentford's Gtech Community Stadium and Stamford Bridge, which was available because Chelsea had failed to qualify for European competition this term, according to ESPN. The crowd against AEK exceeded the club's initial projection of 25,000 for what was considered the lowest-profile of its four home fixtures this season, which also include visits from Sporting CP, Fenerbahce and, in January, Real Madrid.
Stamford Bridge is the latest in a series of temporary European homes for Shakhtar, who have also played in Warsaw, Hamburg, Gelsenkirchen and Krakow during what club director Serhii Palkin described as a 12-year exile from Donetsk. "London, for me, is like the football capital of the whole world, and Stamford Bridge is a legendary, great stadium," Palkin said.
The match drew an unusually high number of female supporters among the Ukrainian fans in attendance, with many Ukrainian men serving at the front line. One fan, Anastasiya, who has not returned to Ukraine since the war began, said she felt closer to home than she had in years. "This is the closest I have felt to my home, seeing Ukrainian flags and feeling the support for my people and our team," she said.
An investment pitch beyond the pitch
Shakhtar's partners used the London fixture to court investors. DTEK chief executive Maxim Timchenko, whose company has had a small corporate presence in the UK for more than a decade and used its London base last month to host investors, government ministers and industry experts at an investment hub forum, said he hoped the game would generate new projects in Ukraine. "Shakhtar is playing here, our partners are coming to the game, and I hope that out of these meetings will come new projects in Ukraine," Timchenko said.
Timchenko said investors who were waiting for the war to end in 2022 and 2023 are now asking practical questions about regulation and generation projects. "In their mind, they already decided to do something in Ukraine now, not waiting until the end of the war," he said, adding that DTEK has invested 2.4 billion euros since the start of the war in 2022, including a wind farm in southern Ukraine the company describes as Eastern Europe's largest.
Palkin said attracting investors and supporting Ukraine's football operations go together. "For us, it's very important to attract investors, not just to support Ukraine but to invest in business and in partnership with Ukraine," he said. "For us, it's not just a question of survival. First of all, it's a question of how to build a future."
Shakhtar's director of football, Darijo Srna, framed the fixture in similarly direct terms before kickoff. "If you come along and support Shakhtar, you're supporting Ukraine," he told The Irish Times. "This team need support and need emotion, because we are living under sirens and bombs. We're here to show the world that we are alive, strong, united and will fight to the end."
Outside the stadium, demand for Shakhtar merchandise outstripped expectations despite the club having no official store presence at a ground that is not its own. "If I'm honest, I've sold more scarves tonight than I've sold in many years, and the attendance is expected to be much less than what we'd usually expect for a Chelsea game," said Gary, a seller outside the grounds. Local fans Simon and Joe said they came mainly for the chance to see Champions League football cheaply in London, adding that Shakhtar "might just become our second team now".
The road ahead
The match came hours after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told Piers Morgan Uncensored that "it's painful when President Trump chooses one side, not our side... this is not the right side of history," while on a visit to London.
Shakhtar's squad, based near Lviv for domestic matches, faced an 18-hour journey to reach London by road convoy to the Polish border and on to a regional Polish airport before flying. The team flew back immediately after the AEK game for a league fixture on Saturday as it defends its domestic title, before hosting Inter Milan at Stamford Bridge the following Wednesday.
Shakhtar have not advanced beyond the group or league phase of the Champions League since 2017/18, when they still played in Ukraine in Kharkiv. The club has not played in Donetsk itself since 2014. "We left our real home in 2014," Palkin said. "No matter where we play, it just becomes our home."
