About twenty players have already intervened this Thursday on social networks to beg their government to exfiltrate them from the country at war.
Very numerous in the workforce of the Ukrainian first division, the Brazilian footballers present in the country launched calls for help this Thursday on social networks. In a video posted on the Twitter account of Arthur Quezada, Brazilian journalist for the Argentine channel TNT Sports, a dozen of them are gathered in a hotel in Kiev, surrounded by wives and children. Three athletes from the Zorya Luhansk club broadcast a similar video from the city of Zaporizhia, imitated shortly after by three Brazilians from Metalist Kharhov.
“Pray for us”
The same journalist reproduces the message he received from Júnior Moraes, striker of Chakhtar Donetsk present in the hotel in Kiev. “The situation is desperate, says the player. I ask you to distribute this video so that it reaches the government. The borders are closed, the banks too, there is no fuel, the food will run out, we have no money. We are gathered waiting for a plan to leave Ukraine.” On Instagram, the Ukrainian international, naturalized in 2019, wrote: “To all our friends and relatives, we are stuck in Kyiv waiting for a solution. Pray for us.”
Trained at Santos FC (like Pelé or Neymar), Júnior Moraes was the top scorer in the Ukrainian championship in 2019 and 2020 (19 goals each time). Under the yellow and blue jersey of Ukraine, he played 11 international meetings, the twelfth being the play-off match for World Cup qualification that his selection must play against Scotland on March 24 in Glasgow. And which today seems compromised.
Bolsonaro, Putin’s friend
Júnior Moraes is the third Brazilian to have opted for a Ukrainian passport in order to play under the colors of his adopted country. Edmar and Martos had preceded him. David Neres, for his part, is a Brazilian international (7 caps since 2019) and must bitterly regret his last career choice: he joined Chakhtar in January, from Ajax Amsterdam, who transferred him for 15 million euros. The other South American star of the Donetsk club, at the head of the national championship whose interruption was announced this Thursday morning, is midfielder Tetê, 22, Olympic champion in 2020 in Tokyo.
Will football immigrants convince their government to try to exfiltrate them from the country at war? The cordial relations between Brazil and Russia do not bode well. During his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week, Jair Bolsonaro underlined “common values” between the two regimes, first and foremost “belief in God” and “defending the family”.