How European hopefuls deal with winter breaks

Holidays, tattoos and rapping
Zenit midfielder Axel Witsel had the most exciting break, travelling to Dubai, Guadeloupe, the United States and Bahamas, while team-mate Artur Yusupov discovered the downside of gambling in Las Vegas. "Seems like it's difficult to win there," he lamented. Lokomotiv's Dmitri Tarasov, meanwhile, took time out to have an image of an angel tattooed on his back, and also recorded a rap song for his wife.

Krasnodar pair Pavel Mamaev and Fedor Smolov played beach football together on a break in Dubai with Deco and Pierluigi Collina among others, all under the watchful eye of referee Fabio Capello. Dynamo striker Junior Moraes joined former Shakhtar star Alex Teixeira for a trip to Fernando de Noronha off the coast of Brazil, and Shakhtar youngters Viktor Kovalenko, Bohdan Sarnavskiy and Mykola Matviyenko visited the Dominican Republic.

Get ready for the restart
Zenit's winter break ended on 10 January, when they went to Qatar for a training camp, beating three local teams. They then travelled to Portugal to play in the Atlantic Cup friendly tournament, defeating Brøndby 2-0 and Norrköping 3-2. After Lokomotiv won three friendlies in Abu Dhabi, they joined Zenit in the Atlantic Cup – where they promptly lost against Norrköping and won against Brøndby, both on penalties.

Krasnodar were in Abu Dhabi, too, for friendlies with clubs from Kazakhstan and China, before flying to Spain on 2 February. Dynamo have two training camps in Spain as usual, giving all of their players a run out before focusing on first-team and tactical plans. Lastly, Shakhtar trained in the United States and played against several Brazilian sides in the Florida Cup before moving on to Spain.

Get new signings settled in
Zenit signed three potential starters in Yuri Zhirkov, Aleksandr Kokorin and Maurício, and coach André Villas-Boas is feeling confident. "We are doing a great job in training, so the players will be ready when the first competitive match comes." Lokomotiv are a man down after selling star striker Baye Oumar Niasse to Everton. "Our squad is not at its best, but there is the spine of a side in place," said coach Igor Cherevchenko.

Work on injured players and make plans
Dynamo star Andriy Yarmolenko missed his team's first training camp with injury, while team-mate Mykola Morozyuk is still sidelined. Their top scorer over the winter has been Łukasz Teodorczyk with four goals. "We need to get into playing shape in our second training camp because we haven't played as many matches as Manchester City at this stage," said Dynamo boss Serhiy Rebrov. "I hope the matches we play in Spain will help us to get ready for the UEFA Champions League."

Shakhtar have made no signings but Alex Teixeira's departure for Chinese outfit Jiangsu Suning leaves a big hole to fill. Mircea Lucescu has thus been deploying winger Taison as a central attacking midfielder with a view to replacing his Brazilian compatriot.