Scotland v Ukraine will be a football match like no other, and it will make a mockery of the idea that sport and politics can be kept apart.
It seems doubtful that there will be a more emotional game this year. Under normal circumstances a World Cup play-off between Scotland and Ukraine would have been fair-to-middling in terms of global attention. But these are not normal circumstances, and in the case of this particular match, that applies to Scotland as well as the team they’re hosting. A quick search for ‘Scotland vs Ukraine’ on Google News brings up two stories, side by side. ‘Scotland vs Ukraine: What does the World Cup play-off mean to Ukrainians?’, ask Sky Sports. ‘What will the Scotland match mean to Ukrainians?’, asks the BBC. This gives some idea of the scale of the task when Scotland take to the Hampden Park pitch for this fixture.
When the draw was made in November, the mood was that it could have been worse. This is only the first half of the World Cup play-offs. The winners of this match still have to play away to Wales (who beat Austria in their game in March) in Cardiff for a place in Qatar. It’s one of the inherent contradictions of play-offs that for all the effort that goes into qualifying, for most it’s just a postponement of disappointment; the realistic view to take of Scotland’s route to the finals was that it was difficult – with only one in four qualifying – but achievable and certainly not as bad as it could have been, with Portugal and Italy among the other teams needing a second bite at qualification.
But then war was foisted upon Ukraine, and the dynamic of this game changed. It should go without saying that the horrors of that country supersede all other subjects, and footballers in Ukraine have the same frightening stories as everybody else. It was reasonable to initially ask whether this game could even take place. Less than half of their squad were based abroad, and with conscription coming in for all…
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