In October, Shakhtar again had to play twice against Real Madrid in the group stage of the Champions League. Despite the total renewal of the team and coaching staff, which the Pitmen had to do due to the start of a full-scale phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Shakhtar looked quite worthy in both battles against the Spanish giants. On the road, the Orange-and-Blacks lost minimally (1:2), and on the nominally home arena in Poland they were incredibly close to victory, but only missed it in stoppage time (1:1).
Before the games with Real Madrid, Spanish journalists talked to Shakhtar’s football director Darijo Srna, asking, among other things, the Croat’s opinion about the abilities and economic value of the main “star” of the Donetsk team today – 21-year-old winger Mykhailo Mudrik. And Srna surprised many by saying that the young Ukrainian surpasses all the Brazilians who previously played for Shakhtar in terms of talent…
“Perhaps because of the war in Ukraine, Shakhtar lost part of their identity, but I can say that Mudrik is the best of all the Brazilians we had. This is not an exaggeration. I have been in football all my life and I can say that Mudrik is the best player in Europe in his position after Mbappe, Neymar and Vinicius. He’s incredible. If Mikhail had a Brazilian passport, it would cost 100 million. If a club wants to sign him, they will have to pay a lot of money,” Srna said.
Comparisons with Mbappe, Neymar and Vinicius were brought by Srna solely so that European fans who read the interview could at least approximately imagine the degree of talent of a player who probably had not even heard of before, but who is in front of Darijo every day, and shows decent progress. Of course, the Croatian exaggerated to a certain extent, but in general, such words of his are absolutely the right approach in terms of popularizing the club and its key assets, which are the players.
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Neither are the economic estimates from Srna, who believes Mudrik could be worth 100 million on the market, looking too surprising or cheeky. [очевидно, евро]. In a situation where Manchester United paid Ajax for the Brazilian Anthony 95 million euros, despite the fact that the South American spent only two seasons in Europe before that, and showed himself brightly only in the last one, selling clubs should focus on modern transfer trends , seeking to make as much money as possible from the potential sale of their young talents.
Therefore, Srna’s words look absolutely reasonable and correct, another question is that they were born almost out of the blue. And the point here is not at all in the figure of Mikhail Mudrik, who is still not well known among the general public, and therefore, in the perception of many, cannot cost as much as many top players of our time. The problem lies precisely in what Srna, in his words quoted above, described as “part of the club’s identity”.
In other words, Shakhtar bet on the Brazilians for too long and too stubbornly. Thanks to this, the Pitmen were able not only to achieve very good sporting achievements in European competitions over the past 10-15 years, as for a team from Eastern Europe, but also gained fame as an incubator club for Brazilian talents. The latter factor attracted many European merchants, who were looking for the next Willian, Douglas Costa or Fernandinho in the Pitmen’s camp. Shakhtar became an understandable player on the European transfer market for top clubs – here you could almost always fish out a “fatty fish”, but in the “accompanying documents” to which one thing was always written – “made in Brazil”.
If we evaluate the list of the five most expensive sales of Shakhtar in history, then there is a place only for representatives of Brazil – Fred (59 million euros), Alex Teixeira (50 million euros), Fernandinho (40 million euros), Willian (35 million euros). ) and Douglas Costa (30 million euros). The top ten includes two more Brazilians – David Neres (8th place; 15.3 million euros) and Dodo (9th place; 14.5 million euros). In addition to them, the top 10 historically most expensive sales of Shakhtar also included Armenian Henrikh Mkhitaryan (6th place; 27.5 million euros), and two Ukrainians – Dmytro Chygrynskyy (7th place; 25 million euros) with Anatoly Tymoshchuk (10th place; 14.5 million euros).
All this indicates that Shakhtar have learned how to promote, properly popularize and profitably sell Brazilians, and rare exceptions in the form of players of other nationalities, as you know, should be considered only as an additional emphasis on the basic rule.
Moreover, if you look at the top twenty of the most expensive outbound transfers for Shakhtar, then there was a place for only four Ukrainians. In addition to the above-mentioned Chygrinsky and Tymoshchuk, there are also Yaroslav Rakitsky and Alexander Gladky. Note that only the latter is an attacking player, once again being “part of the club’s identity” that Srna spoke of. Due to the fact that Shakhtar relied on foreigners (mainly Brazilians) for many years ahead, moderately talented players with a Ukrainian passport were not given the opportunity to prove themselves in the first team. The same Gladky would not have been in the aforementioned top 20 either, if not for the “golden era” in Ukrainian football, when Oleksandr could afford to buy Dnipro for 5 million euros from the Pitmen – still the one, primordially natural.
It is not surprising that in the cohort of Shakhtar’s most expensive sales in the top twenty you will find the names of very diligent, but, frankly speaking, not outstanding in terms of talent (which, by the way, is confirmed by their further career outside of Shakhtar) attack players, like Luis Adriano, Brandão, Marcelo Moreno… But Shakhtar managed to sell one of the brightest players in the UEFA Youth League 2014/15, the top scorer of the 2015 Youth World Cup and the winner of the Golden Talent of Ukraine award in 2015, 2016, Viktor Kovalenko for only 600 thousand euros, and not to Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern or Juventus, but to Atalanta, where he was very quickly identified as a “football product”, and sent on loan to modest “Spice” in order to find in the future an option with a profitable resale.
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Was it possible after that to hope that Shakhtar would be able to sell Mykhailo Mudryk on the move for 100, or at least 50 million euros? It is unlikely that the summer transfer window proved that. Worthy buyers with a stable financial background did appear on the horizon – Arsenal, Milan, Juventus, they even talked about Real Madrid. But none of them approached the Pitmen with proposals. The matter was limited to contacts with teams of the “second tier” of European football like Bayer, Brentford, Nice … Bargaining 100 or at least 50 million euros from them is an impossible task, which is why the deal never took place.
To Shakhtar’s credit, the club still did not sell Mudrik for the maximum he was given in the summer, defending the point of view of the minimum required 50 million. Thus, the Pitmen took a serious risk, because no one could predict how Mikhail would perform in the Champions League, the main measure of talent in the eyes of top European clubs. They, in fact, were in no hurry to post too much in the summer, wanting to see what Mudrik is like at the most serious level.
After Mudryk scored four goals and assists in four games (2 goals and 2 assists), it became clear to scouts of Europe’s top clubs that this Ukrainian talent could have a very promising career ahead of him. She is not guaranteed to Mudrik at all, but Mikhail really has all the makings to be at the top level – from excellent speed and technique, to the ability to demonstrate high-quality football at the top level.
Does this mean that now Shakhtar will be able to get 50 million euros or more from the sale of Mudrik without any problems? Is not a fact. At least because of all the same transfer foundations that we talked about above. Shakhtar is still not seen in Europe as a supplier of unconditionally high-quality players with a Ukrainian passport. An isolated case, as with Mudrik now, is seen as a significant risk for serious European clubs, both in terms of finance and reputation. In the end, everyone remembers very well how Dmitriy Chygrynskyy’s career at Barcelona developed, who demonstrated European-level football at Shakhtar, and very quickly became depressed and “blown away” in Spain…
So now Shakhtar is entering a new era for itself, which will have to lead to the renewal of the notorious club identity. It’s time for the Pitmen, who have a very worthy youth academy, to do their best to popularize on the European football market not so much Brazilians as Ukrainians, who are able to play and show modern football. And only over time it will be just right to count on the opportunity to gain 100 million euros from the transfer of the Ukrainian, because once the Pitmen were insanely happy with 12 million euros from Manchester City for Elano, and it took them 11 years of rapid development to get 59 million euro for Fred from Manchester United.
Therefore, Shakhtar may well sell the Ukrainian football player in the future for a record 100 million euros. What is true, for objective reasons, it is unlikely that Mikhail Mudryk will turn out to be the one, but this is not at all a reason for the Pitmen to abandon the strategy of trusting a place in the roster to Ukrainian talents and helping them gradually reach the top level in the medium term…
