Paulo Fonseca on escaping from Ukraine: ‘We spent a night in the bunker with Roberto De Zerbi.’

As part of his interview to mark four years since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Olympique Lyonnais coach Paulo Fonseca relived, for L’Équipe, his and his family’s escape from the country.

Fonseca, who had left his role as coach of Shakhtar Donetsk in 2019, recalls that he and his Ukrainian wife Kateryna were not in the country in the lead-up to February 23^rd 2022, but decided to go to Ukraine to pick Kateryna’s family up and take them to Portugal.

“We could have taken a return flight to Portugal on February 22nd, but we had administrative details to take care of, the deadline was too tight and we decided to leave on the 24th, at 10am.”

That decision led to a dramatic journey to secure safety for Fonseca and his family.

“The night before, we packed the suitcases and all the paperwork until 2 or 3 a.m. My wife and I talked a lot that night, she cried: “I think we’re going to have to go into exile again.” I told her no, nothing is going to happen. In fact, at 5 a.m., we were woken up by the sound of bombs. The war had already begun. We packed our suitcases and got into a minibus with the whole family.”

The Fonsecas were only one of hundreds of families looking to leave immediately, but help from a surprise source enabled them to buy some time:

“Traffic was completely blocked on the road towards Lviv. And then my friends from Shakhtar called me. “Don’t go yet, it’s impossible to get out, come here, we’re all here together.” The president of Shakhtar owns a hotel with a bunker in the basement. We spent a night in the bunker with Roberto De Zerbi, who was the club’s coach at the time. He was there with his technical team and most of the Brazilian players at the club. There were maybe 60 of us, petrified.

“The next day, the Portuguese embassy told me that they had found a minivan. We left with only the clothes on our backs, without a suitcase. And we spent more than 30 hours on the route to Moldova. At night, we could hear the sirens, and we had to make detours to avoid the Russian soldiers.

“It was only when we arrived very close to the Moldovan border that we felt that we were no longer in danger. We were able to stop for a coffee, to buy food in a supermarket. It’s a relief I’ll never forget. We entered Moldova and then went to Romania.”

Unsurprisingly, that harrowing experience is one that will stay with Fonseca forever:

“I will never forget a single moment, between hearing the first bomb and crossing the Moldovan border. Never have I been more afraid for our lives, for the lives of my son and my wife. It is always present in me.”

GFFN | Jeremy Smith