The timing of the publication of this photo essay by Richard Morgan could have been better, what with Ukraine having become one of the few teams to be eliminated after the group stages of the Euros (a real kick in the teeth after a very creditable draw against a highly rated but sluggish Belgium, and after finishing with the same number of points as the other three teams in the group). But its merits as a portrait of the unifying power of sport even in extreme circumstances, and of bruised but defiant national pride, are unaffected.
As Morgan takes pains to point out, though, it's not the case that the football has provided welcome respite from the grim realities and perennial threats of daily life: "[I]t is impossible to escape the horrors of war in Ukraine, to find relief in the football, because the war is in the very experience of following the football here: it's in the walk to the game past anti-tank defences, sandbags, covered monuments, and boarded-up churches; it's in the pre-match motivational messages from frontline fighters to the footballers; it's in the air-raid warnings of rocket attacks flashing across the TV screen as you watch the game in the pub; it's in the power cuts before kick-off. Euro 24 is not a convenient distraction from war in Ukraine, but yet another way to live it."
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