On a mild September evening in eastern Germany, just six months after Russia invaded Ukraine, I met Mykhailo Mudryk just after midnight.
It was September 2022 and Mudrik was an emerging prospect for then-Ukrainian champions Shakhtar Donetsk. He became the team’s main attacking threat in Shakhtar’s shock 4-1 win in their Champions League opener against German side RB Leipzig.
For Mudryk and his teammates, the Champions League provided a respite from the horrors of their hometown. When Russian bombs fell on Ukraine in February 2022, many of Shakhtar’s foreign players took refuge in a windowless room in a Kiev hotel, and an escape plan was later drawn up with the involvement of several national embassies, football federations and UEFA. .
Shakhtar had more than a dozen Brazilian players at the time, but many left for safety when they did not return after the season in Ukraine. Football resumed in Ukraine for the 2022-23 season, with Shakhtar playing their home games in Lviv, a relatively safe city in western Ukraine, after being driven from their home in Donetsk for the first time in 2014 following a Russian-backed incursion. There are still frequent pauses due to air raid sirens.
Shakhtar’s squad is a shell of its former self, with just one player arriving for more than £2 million ($2.51 million in today’s prices). This squad consisted mainly of young, inexperienced men. The following month against Real Madrid, their starting squad included 10 Ukrainian players, eight of whom came from the club’s youth system and seven of whom were under the age of 23.
Just 21 years old, Mudryk suddenly became the poster boy for a team whose indomitable spirit and improbable resistance seemed to epitomize the Ukrainian struggle.
That evening in Germany athletic They were included in the Ukrainian side to produce a documentary about their attempts to play during the war. I spoke briefly to Mudryk and his midfield team-mate and best friend Georgiy Sudakov as they left their hotel in Leipzig in the early hours of the morning. Their heads were spinning and adrenaline was flowing through their veins after their unexpected victory. But they also explained that they wanted to walk freely at night, in a place with no shelter, no screams, no air raid sirens, and a quick reminder of a normal life by driving them underground. They did that for 30 minutes and then went back to their rooms.
At that point, Mudryk’s star was just beginning to shine. He was primitive in the extreme, and it is unlikely that he would have become famous so quickly if it had not been for the timely departure of Brazilian players.
The player only made his national team debut in June 2022, but by January 2023, after several impressive performances in the Champions League, including against Real Madrid, Mudryk had become the most expensive Ukrainian footballer in history. He signed for Premier League side Chelsea, with an initial fee of £62m promised a potential further payment of £26.5m depending on his and Chelsea’s success.
This week’s news that Mudryk has tested positive for the banned substance meldonium is a dagger to the heart of Ukrainian football and leaves the player fighting to save his career. The extent of the damage will be determined based on the results of Mudrick’s ‘B’ sample, but despite the unfavorable results for Mudrick’s ‘A’ sample, Mudrick has been provisionally suspended by the English Football Association.
Ukraine’s Euro 2024 campaign has turned into a moving symbol of national pride. (Andrzej Iwanczuk / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Chelsea’s efforts to sign the player were significant, tying him down to a seven-and-a-half-year contract with the option to extend it for a further year. Even during the invasion, Shakhtar succeeded in attracting a bidding war and this was the interest. Previously, he was chased by Bayer Leverkusen of Germany as well as Newcastle United, Brentford, and Everton of the Premier League, but ultimately ended up in a fight between Arsenal and Chelsea.
Dario Srna, Shakhtar’s director of football at the time, said: athletic: “If someone wants to buy Mudryk, they have to pay a lot of money. Otherwise the club president (Rinat Akhmetov) will not sell him. Every club should respect its president, it should respect Shakhtar and at the end of the day it should respect Mykhailo Mudrik, one of the best players I have ever seen. “The price is too expensive.”
Srna rated Mudryk behind Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior in the wide forward positions and claimed Manchester United will need big money while the midfielder signed Antony from Ajax in an £86m deal and Jadon Sancho from Borussia Dortmund in a £73m deal. City buy Jack Grealish for £100m.
Conscious of the power of sport to manipulate the narrative of war, Shakhtar announced that once the transfer was completed, their owner Rinat Akhmetov pledged $25 million to the war effort, particularly to support the defense of Mariupol and Russia. announced that it would donate . Families who have lost loved ones. The agreement with Chelsea also included a clause that Shakhtar would play Chelsea in a friendly in Donetsk once the Ukrainian region was no longer occupied by Russian forces.
“It’s written in the contract,” Shakhtar CEO Sergey Palkin said. athletic “But in fact, Bedad Egbali (Chelsea co-owner) spoke to our chairman on the phone, so there was no need to even read the contract. Behdad is American and being an English club they support Ukraine a lot so this is a positive triangle. When it comes to the UK and Ukraine, our support for the war is important.
“It was Bedard who made the (friendly) offer. Because he said he wanted to help Ukraine, help Ukrainian refugees, support the Ukrainian people. This match (in Donetsk) will be like a miracle. (Because they haven’t played in their home city since 2014) I’d like to have this game every weekend if possible.”
When Mudryk was unveiled at Stamford Bridge, he was wrapped in a Ukrainian flag. The player was born and raised in the city of Krasnohrad, close to Kharkiv, one of the most brutally affected regions of the country. “Since the start of the full-scale war, our city has been bombarded with missiles day and night,” Mudryk said in a powerful video in which 13 Ukrainian players talk about the impact the war has had on their hometown. Ukrainian Football Association ahead of the European Championship in the summer of 2024.
Mudryk (left) competes with Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard last month (Ryan Pierse / Getty Images)
He is a more reserved figure than his Ukrainian compatriot Oleksandr Zinchenko, who has been at the forefront of media activity to promote solidarity with Ukraine. He appears to be a devout religious follower of the Orthodox Christian faith and carries religious symbols with him to games. He has the following tattoo on his chest: “God, even if I lose hope today, please remind me that your plans are better than my dreams.”
His on-field speeches have become more frequent with his national team, most notably when he scored the winning goal against Iceland to qualify for Euro 2024. Ukraine was eliminated from the tournament in the group stage and Mudrik did not score. Although his country lost only on goal difference, with all four teams in Group E tied on four points after three games.
For club and country, he is yet to fulfill his potential. He has scored just five goals and provided four assists in 53 Premier League appearances for Chelsea. This week’s sample release raised doubts about his ability to play. Meldonium was previously a drug that tennis star Maria Sharapova was banned from competing with.
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Mudryk’s drug ban explained: what is meldonium and possible punishments
According to Chelsea’s statement, this side effect was reported during a routine urine test. The club added that Mudrick “has unequivocally confirmed that he has never knowingly used any prohibited substances.”
“I have never knowingly used a banned substance or broken any rules, so the results were completely shocking,” Mudrick said on Instagram.
He added: “We are working closely with our team to investigate how this could have happened.”
“I know I didn’t do anything wrong and I’m hopeful I’ll be back on the pitch soon. “I can’t say more right now because of the confidentiality of the process, but I will tell you as soon as I can.”
The Football Association’s (FA) anti-doping regulations state that any breach will be treated as a strict liability offence. For example, if a prohibited substance is found in an athlete’s system, the athlete will be found guilty of an offense. There is no need to prove intent. Alleging a player’s lack of intent or knowledge is not a valid defense to the charge.
Breaching the FA’s anti-doping rules can be punishable by a ban of up to four years, but mitigating factors can reduce the ban from two years to just one month. The B sample will be key.
Shakhtar’s Georgiy Sudakov has expressed support for his friend Mudryk. (Christof Koepsel / Getty Images)
With Mudryk’s career on the line, the Ukrainian football world appears to be following his lead. Several Ukrainian sources, who remained anonymous because they were not authorized to speak, said: athletic Claims (there is no evidence to support this claim) that the player suspects he may have been the victim of vandalism while away for the national team this season. But in their home country, this claim is being taken seriously.
Shakhtar midfielder Sudakov posted a message of support to his friend on Instagram, urging him to “stay strong.”
Meanwhile, Shakhtar CEO Palkin wrote that Mudrick was a “high-profile professional athlete” and added that he had full confidence that the player had “never used any banned substances”.
“I am confident he will prove his innocence,” Falkin said. Time will tell whether their beliefs are justified.
(Top photo: Etsuo Hara/Getty Images, design: Dan Goldfarb)
