World Cup 2022 – Barrage: Ukraine will play “the most important match in its history”

There are matches that are more than sport. The clash between Scotland and Ukraine in Glasgow on Wednesday evening (8:45 p.m.) will be part of this, in a semi-final play-off for the World Cup which promises to be rich in emotions, and which will obviously be more than a football match for coach Oleksandr Petrakov and his men.

A coach that the army refused

The 64-year-old, in office since last summer and his succession of legend Andriy Shevchenko, has also tried to enlist to defend his country against the Russian invasion, but his request was refused. The authorities told him that he would be more useful in his role as coach by qualifying Ukraine for the World Cup. When facing Scotland, he also had a friendly thought towards his evening opponents at a press conference: “I have great respect for the Scottish national team, gratitude that they unconditionally agreed to postpone our original match to June. That’s football. This is what they want and what we want. So we’re on equal footing.”

“It’s crucial to stay focusedabout football and trying to forget the war for 90 or 120 minutes“, he also explained to the Slovenian daily Delo, the selection having prepared about 20 km north of the Slovenian capital Ljubljana. “During training, the use of mobile phones is strictly prohibited.“, added the manager. The players, he acknowledged, “could be swept away very quickly“, car “their thoughts are always drawn elsewhere and they have to be calmed down again and again, their families are in Ukraine, their friends on the battlefield“.

“Before this match against Scotland, we must reject all parasitic thoughts“, added the experienced Ukrainian goalkeeper Andriy Pyatov (37) on the website of his federation. But the war will inevitably hover over the meeting. “This is the most important game in our history“, assured AFP Iryna Koziupa, journalist for the sports site tribuna.com, which covers the national team.

“It’s not even about football anymore but about hope for all people in Ukraine. It will be a sign that the war does not break us“, she added, explaining that she will cover the match “from home [elle]before [s]on laptop“. “Only a small group of journalists followed the team in Slovenia, then in Scotland“, explains for his part to AFP the usual interpreter of the selection, Andriy Bidnyk. “This game against Scotland offers some fresh air, at least for a while“, he notes.”It’s a chance to win another battle, peaceful, this one. We usually gather in bars or at friends’ houses to see these matches but this time, with the curfew, the majority of Ukrainians will watch it from their homes, or from their new homes for those who had to run away from home…“

A successful city in Ukraine

If Ukraine win, they will have a final to play in Wales on Sunday (8:45 p.m.) to try to join Group B of the World Cup, with England, the United States and Iran . In sporting terms, the Yellows and Blues have excellent memories of Glasgow, where Artem Dovbyk scored the winning goal in the last second of extra time against Sweden (2-1 ap), in the round of 16 of the last Euro .

In this very particular context, Scotland does not have a good role, for all that a victory for Ukraine would represent, symbolically. “We gave them all the time they needed“, Scottish captain Andy Robertson explained to the BBC. “We helped them as much as we could, but on Wednesday night we have to be ready to fight for our dreams“.

“It’s good that it could have happened. It’s been a long wait since November when we found out who we were going to play against“, added Steve Clark, the coach of the “Tartan Army”.Of course circumstances have changed for the Ukrainian team since then, but I’m glad they had the opportunity to come here and play for their country. They will want to represent the country as well as possible, and we are no different in this respect..”

(With AFP)