Shakhtar coach Lucescu has surgery after crash
Reuters - Sunday 08 January 2012, 15:26
Shakhtar Donetsk's Romanian
coach Mircea Lucescu underwent surgery in Bucharest on Sunday
after breaking several ribs in a car accident on Friday.
"Right now Lucescu is in surgery. Romanian doctors do their
best to stop fluid accumulating in his pleural cavity," the
Ukrainian champions said on their website.
Lucescu, 66, also suffered a concussion when his car, in
which he was a passenger, hit a tram, then collided with another
vehicle before crashing at the side of the road.
"Mircea is not just the Shakhtar coach, he's my friend,"
Shakhtar's billionaire boss Rinat Akhmetov was quoted as saying
by the club's website after visiting Lucescu in Bucharest.
"We really need him but I hope our coaching staff could do
the job and prepare the team well. After such incident we have
no choice but to win both the league and the Ukrainian Cup."
Shakhtar are in second place, trailing arch-rivals Dynamo
Kiev by a point with 10 games remaining. The season resumes in
March following a three-month winter break.
Lucescu has coached Shakhtar since 2004, leading them to
five domestic league titles, three Ukrainian Cups and the UEFA
Cup in 2009.