Petrokov’s team is now in discussion with Wales about the right to travel to the World Cup in Qatar
It wasn’t just any football game. As fate would have it, the draw for the matches in the second round of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup called for two runners-up from the first stage, at Hampden Park, on March 24. Russia had started the war a month earlier, the Kiev government banned competitive football between men of combative age. The appointment has been cancelled.
Coach Oleksandre Petrokov has kept in touch with his charges spread around the world. But sixteen players from the team that played in the first group stage, like him, stayed in the country. The government gave them special permission to leave to prepare for the upcoming match. Men between the ages of 16 and 60 are not allowed to leave under martial law.
They met in Slovenia and when they arrived in Glasgow it was inevitable to remember Valeri Lobanovski, the legendary football player and manager of Dynamo Kiev, possible inventor of the high pressure tactics. Apparently wise and accurate drinker on the bench of the selection of the Soviet Union, and also of Ukraine. Petrokov also spoke Russian, but now only speaks Ukrainian.
Another Ukrainian legend, Andriy Shevchenko, watched the match in the stands. He was once credited for calming the national team’s mood after players from Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk kicked and punched each other in a match. There are articles that analyze in detail what happened after a football game in Odessa, which would have been the embryo of the war. But Shevchenko was now watching a real football game.
It was a contest, first of all, of hymns. Local fans, the tartan army, had learned the melody of the Ukrainian national anthem from the plaid and there was a united and moving chorus in Hampden Park. And then they surrendered to their ‘Flower of Scotland’. The two hymns – “Ukraine is not dead yet, nor its glory and its freedom, happiness will smile on us”, said those of the visitors – have the smell of loss.
The game finally started. The Ukrainian team looked fresher from the first moment than on its last appearance on the islands. He then gave England a walk at Wembley (4-0) after beating Sweden in the round of 16 of the European Championship, putting body and soul into the effort. More connections, with tactical clarity, seemed like the best team this time.
Yarmolenko and Yaremchuk, two tall and strong forwards, will be a problem for any team, especially one as the Scot with classic defenders in the middle, without any expectation. The first, who played for London’s West Ham this season, scored in the 32nd minute and controlled a high and long pass from Stepanenko with his left foot, which he transferred to the passive defence. He lifted the ball over the keeper’s exit.
Yaremchuk had opened to the right in the 50th minute, coupled with Karavaev, who came to support him. He received the ball and went for the far post, where Yaremuchuk had moved the defenders, who he outsmarted by hitting the ground for the second goal. Scotland scored from a terrible mistake by the visiting goalkeeper and the third Ukrainian goal came as the hosts opened fearfully and sloppy in extra time.
The numerous Scottish fans applauded and chanted. The checkered army withdrew with sobriety and respect for the rival. A girl from Glasgow mourned the loss of her team. Football, a possible simulation of a war, had led to a return to something akin to normality.
Source: La Verdad
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