In an interview with Het Nieuwsblad, the Brugge forward and Ukraine national team player Roman Yaremchuk told the Belgian newspaper whether thoughts of the war prevent him from playing football.
Roman Yaremchuk. Photo: Getty Images- How hard is it to think about football when your homeland is under attack?
- At first it was a real shock. There are players who even lost family members because of the war. It also affected my performance. I was playing for Benfica when the war started. I lost a lot of weight because I just couldn't sleep anymore. I was on the phone around the clock, watching where the troops were going, where the missiles were hitting, I wanted to know where my family was. I wanted to know where they lived, how things were going in my house in Kyiv. It was like a Hollywood movie.
- And in recent years?
- Somewhere you learn to accept it. Life goes on. Today I can leave it behind on the field, although I certainly continue to follow the news. Every day.
My family still lives in Lviv. It is also "hot" there, but it is safer than in Kyiv, Kharkiv or Odesa. And they don't want to leave. They stay where their cradle, their home, is.
- I heard that you recently sold a T-shirt at an auction.
- It has become the most normal thing in the world. There are soldiers at every match, and we give them T-shirts. Just like I sent trucks with food and medicine at the beginning of the war.
- Would you take up arms?
- It's easy to say that, but I don't want to be a populist. I don't know what it is. What will happen? Nobody knows. It's been almost three years since I was in Ukraine. I used to be able to get on a plane on a day off. Now it's too difficult. I have to fly to Poland, take a bus.
