Good, because we are in a safe zone, but not too well because of what we have experienced in recent days and because of the situation of many players and members of the staff that is making us suffer a lot. We are trying to work to help as much as possible from here.
Did you imagine a year ago when you were fighting for the triplet that suddenly his joy would be that there were no bombs in the city where he is?
For nothing in the world. A year ago we were winning the Champions League, the treble, everything and a week ago we won the Turkish Cup with this team, the first title for the Ukrainian women’s team in 30 years and three days later they are at war and the concern is to be alive. It is very beast. I did not imagine it for anything in the world.
Realize so many things that we take for granted, how are the priorities in life.
We have no idea. Everything you have experienced in these last three days makes you rethink things and see them in a very different way. Yesterday one of my nieces at home told me ‘I’m bored’. ‘You get bored, imagine spending 20 hours on a train packed like sardines without an iPad or anything, that you can only play rock, paper, scissors’. Sometimes we do not value simple things like sleeping in a bed. We sleep five hours in two days and the body adapts. Living these situations makes you rethink many things and take them away from others.
Your entire journey begins with the detonation of three bombs.
My physical trainer hears three bombs, which sound like three firecrackers. I had never heard a bomb. He opens the window and hears anti-aircraft sirens and his sister who works on the radio tells him what’s going on. He comes to my room and tells me: ‘Lluís, we already have it here’. I didn’t know what he was talking about until I open the window. And I call my agent and say ‘The war has started’ and we prepare the evacuation plan from Kiev.
Which starts on the road. Was he afraid that a bomb would fall on them?
The truth is that yes, you contemplate it: you are fleeing from the city, you do not advance (30 km in 6 hours) and you think: ‘how they get there, they will eat us up’. You see tanks go by, a war plane with a thunderous noise that you don’t know if it’s a plane or a missile because you’ve never heard it. People walking down the highway in despair. Suddenly we are on a road in a sorry state, not knowing where we are and believing that the driver does not know either, with almost no gas. But we can refuel and get to Lviv and go to a hotel. We go to breakfast and we hear some messages on the speakers that we have to go to the bunker, which is where the spa is, in the lower part. And there we were all the guests. We went for a walk after a while and from there to catch the train.
“There are some players who don’t love each other: they think ‘if we leave, who will defend our land?’
On the train with the anguish of not being able to communicate with the family.
A very serious anguish, because we did not know where we were going. They told us: ‘at 10 ready’, but not how we would go. Getting on the train was already an odyssey: fights, shouting, people crying, losing things and cell phones. We were 200 people in a car in which 80 had to enter: people on the floor, standing, on the suitcases… Those seated very tight. On the train almost all were women, children and old people. Those of us under 60 were almost all foreigners. Downstairs were all the Ukrainians who stayed: ‘I’ll go to Kiev tomorrow and tomorrow pang, pang’. That someone says goodbye to you like this is very brutal, it is very difficult for me to understand. On the platform the people crying, upstairs too. We start the trip but suddenly the train stops, there is no information, it is night. You no longer know if the train has been sabotaged, there is a barricade or missile threat, they have destroyed the track… With incredible heat, it was hard to breathe, impossible to go to the bathroom because you had to step on 40 people before you got there. It was a situation of brutal anguish. And to that was added that we could not report at home. They didn’t sleep all night. I had a worse time for them than for me. You’re scared but I thought of them.
How many hours was he without talking to them?
Five. It was very beast. We finally arrive at a station where I can talk to my family and we go through a seven-hour passport check. They always said ‘one hour’. At seven o’clock it starts. At the time of crossing the border it was curious because we thought that’s it, we’ve already recovered everything, but instead the Ukrainians and especially the Ukrainians were sad because they lost everything. Another life began with nothing. In Kiev I have left many friends, many acquaintances, but I have nothing there: no flat, not even a simple suitcase. But they leave fathers, brothers and husbands.
I don’t know if I was aware of the refugee issue before, but this should make anyone aware.
I had collaborated with NGOs but when you experience it, it asks you for a brutal reality slap. This is the reality of a refugee who leaves a country because they are forced to, because he does not want to, he leaves many things behind and he does not know what to do. They know that the Polish government gives them 15 days but they don’t know what to do. I told my adventure on Twitter and they told me ‘bah, you’re on vacation’. I would put all those who said so on the train and they would not need 20 hours, with 5 they would have enough. It is a very difficult situation that helps you and makes you much more sensitive.
All those who send hateful and racist messages on networks with a few hours there would still change their discourse.
Completely. In a few hours on that train, or in a boat or column of people walking out of a country at war. I am not saying that it is necessary to live it, but we do have to be more aware of what is happening in the world. That last month it happened in many places but that this is happening next door. Who knows if Poland, Moldova or Finland will come next because we don’t know what the Russian army’s intentions are. We have to be very careful and try to help Ukrainian society, those who are leaving and don’t know where to go, at least until they can return home, which is what everyone wants.
‘I tomorrow for Kiev and pang pang’. That someone says goodbye to you like this is very beast.
Now he’s going to a rally against the war. What impact do you think these demonstrations or the measures of FIFA and UEFA have?
Nobody or almost nobody wants a war. As a society we have to make as much noise as possible to try to change the minds of those who do want it. And to give support, so that the Ukrainian people see that there are people willing to help. It’s not just going to the concentration but I try to share all the initiatives on Twitter. And I am also collecting material, medicine, connecting people who collect things and those who can transport them. I cannot make calls, line-ups or party plans because I will do that: collaborate as much as possible in this, act as a speaker.
There are players and staff who have stayed and some have people in the front. What they say?
We are working to see what their intentions are: we have players who are in the country, some want to leave and cannot, others can and do not want to, because they want to stay defending the country because they think: if we all leave, who will defend our land. It is very difficult to imagine but very lawful. The staff men can’t go out. Half of the team, about 15 players, are out of the country, because they are on stage with their team or playing abroad. And they are suffering a lot for their families. We are in daily contact with the players and staff and the answer is: we are fine but my father is at war. And they don’t know if they’ll come back. And that is very difficult to assimilate. I’ve had meetings with the UEFA women’s football manager to see how they can help. It’s a very fucked up situation for me because I can’t talk to my bosses because some of them are on the front lines. I can’t ask what will happen to the federation, I don’t have the courage to ask what will happen. What they do know is that I am willing to help them with anything outside Ukraine. If the players can go out if necessary, I will go to look for them by car. We will find a better life for them, but the problem is whether they will be able to do it.
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Her priority now is not her job future but the future of the players, their families and their country.
And not as footballers, at the level of life. What can we do to keep them alive: not so that they play football and become better footballers. But what to do so that they can live with normal quality of life. And that’s where we are. In helping them get out and from there build their future. But it is a very chaotic, dramatic and difficult situation to manage. One has her son in Kiev and she wrote to me: “I have gone to the community where camouflage nets are woven for our army, I want to be useful at least in something! We endure, we believe that the truth is on our side, we are a strong people! One of the ‘staff’ tells me that he has food for a week, but then we don’t know what will happen. That a friend of yours, who three days ago we were celebrating a title in Turkey, tells you this, it destroys me.