Soccer title races in Ukraine, Turkey defy off-field dangers

GENEVA (AP) — Forget about Manchester City and Barcelona for a moment and consider the Ukrainian and Turkish soccer leagues.

Both, somewhat amazingly, are set to be completed in the next few weeks despite war and disaster, and both have big showdown games coming up this month that could decide the titles.

The entire Ukrainian league season has been played in near-empty stadiums in the safer western part of the country despite the constant threat of disruption from sirens alerting of Russian air raids. Somehow, the league is only one game behind schedule after 24 of 30 rounds — and second-place Dnipro-1 can use that game to close the gap on perennial champion Shakhtar Donetsk to two points.

Shakhtar is scheduled to host Dnipro-1 at the end of the month in Lviv, far from each club's home city in war-ravaged eastern Ukraine.