Scotland will be ‘enemies of the world’ on June 1

CLARKE’S STARS FACING AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE, WARNS TOP UKRAINIAN FOOTBALL ANALYST

BORN and raised in London, Andrew Todos always knew where to locate his real home on a map. The son of Ukrainian parents, childhood was spent snatching snippets of news from the motherland. And, by 2018, starting an English language website dedicated to the Ukrayinska Premier Liha felt like a natural progression.

For four years the traffic was modest. The spike came earlier this year when Vladimir Putin’s tanks rolled over the border with Russia and the imposition of martial law saw domestic football suspended indefinitely. Next week Ukraine’s postponed World Cup play-off semi-final in Glasgow finally goes ahead after a three-month delay. And Todos will be one of the 2,000 visiting fans wiping a patriotic tear from his eye when the national anthem strikes up and the eyes of the footballing world focus on Scotland’s National Stadium.

‘Scotland has become the innocent-bystander enemies of the football world through no fault of their own,’ said the creator of the Zorya Londonsk website.

‘The vast majority of the world will be backing Ukraine. That’s just the way it is here.

‘Ukrainians will travel to the game for sure. Not many from Ukraine itself obviously, but there will be diaspora or refugees who have been able to cross Europe. I know some people from America that will be coming over.

‘And I can guarantee that when the Ukrainian anthem goes up around Hampden, that will be a hugely emotional moment for all of us. There will be tears for me and tears from other Ukrainians in the crowd and also from the players. The meaning of what’s at stake in this game is immense.

‘And in general the Ukrainian side also want to show thanks for the support Scotland and the UK have been giving the country since the war began.’

Scotland’s tangible support took the form of a friendly match against Poland which raised £500k towards UNICEF’s emergency appeal for Ukraine.

Ten pounds from each of the 39,090 tickets sold was donated to the crisis, while supporters were encouraged to provide contributions via text or online during the match. The sums raised were enough to establish four Blue Dot Centres as safe spaces along border crossings for refugees forced to flee towards neighbouring countries.

‘The World Cup play-off has taken on a very different meaning to what it might have, had the game taken place in March when Scotland finished up playing Poland instead,’ said Todos.

‘Since the full-scale invasion started and it began to touch every single Ukrainian across the country, with missiles hitting cities in the west and Kyiv, the public consciousness and the patriotism towards the national team has increased.

‘Players performing in the west like Oleksandr Zinchenko of Manchester City and Andriy Yarmolenko of West Ham have become de facto ambassadors for Ukraine, even beyond the football pitch.

‘With their high profiles they have been able to raise money and share the message of what’s going on and raise awareness through their media sphere. The football team has become a source of national pride.

‘That has only been amplified these past three months — since the war began — through players taking to social media with a Ukrainian flag round their shoulders and a tear in their eye.

‘There is a lot of hope being rested on the shoulders of these players ahead of this game against Scotland — and possibly Wales.’

It will be very emotional when our national anthem plays at Hampden

The prize for the winners of Wednesday night’s semi-final play-off is a trip to Cardiff to face Gareth Bale’s Wales in the final four days later. For long enough it felt as if the game might never happen at all.

A request to FIFA from the Ukrainian Football Association asked for a postponement until June.

So long as the bombs and missiles dropped — and martial law prevented men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country — it was impossible to see how players based in a paralysed domestic league could play for the national team.

By the beginning of May the narrative began to change. Coach Oleksandr Petrakov (pictured right) assembled 23 players at the Slovenian Football Association training centre at Brdo pri Kranju, 12 miles north of the capital Ljubljana. The patronising chatter suggesting Ukraine should be granted a grace and favour place at the World Cup finals in Qatar dried up.

‘For whatever reason I always had a feeling that the game would go ahead,’ added Todos.

‘Because of the importance this World Cup play-off has, as a sign of national pride and patriotism, it was always going to happen.

‘I always felt that even if men aged 18-60 were not allowed to leave, they would still be given special permission to go and prepare for the game. They have actually been given optimal preparation time to prepare for Glasgow.

‘Around 60 per cent of the squad hasn’t played competitive football since December. But players in the Ukrainian team and the coach Petrakov said “no way” to a bye.

‘Andriy Yarmolenko said that as long as the players had arms and legs they would give it their all.

‘Whilst the other guys are on the front line that’s the very least the footballers feel they can do.

‘So I don’t think there was any realistic mechanism for giving Ukraine an extra spot or whatever, because where does that stop?

‘Ukrainians don’t want to be seen as some kind of charity case anyway. They want to earn the spot. So let’s get it on merit and not via hand-outs.’

So it was, then, that plans were hatched for the ‘Global Tour of Peace.’ Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk arranged friendly games to raise money for the people of Ukraine. Shakhtar became the first Ukrainian team to play a game since the invasion on April 9 when they faced Olympiakos in Greece with ‘Stop War’ posted on their

shirts. Dynamo Kyiv’s tour started three days later in Poland, with a game against Legia Warsaw, followed by a stop off in Gdansk.

Despite some resistance from coach Mircea Lucescu, Dynamo’s players were finally released to join Petrakov’s training camp in Slovenia. Since then the national team have beaten Borussia Mönchengladbach in Germany before moving on to Italy to face Empoli on May 17 and Croatia for a 1-1 draw with Rijeka the following night.

‘I’ve been to all three games,’ added Todos. ‘They were relatively low intensity, especially the last one against Rijeka. That was the day after they played Empoli and it finished with a third-string Ukraine team playing out a draw. ‘At the end of the day they are friendlies. And they are against clubs. Even Petrakov has said he can’t praise his players for their performances for that reason. ‘It’s literally a warm-up to get the legs going ahead of the big one. A fitness exercise.’ By the time they played Empoli and Rijeka, overseas stars Roman Yaremchuk (Benfica), Danylo Sikan (Hansa Rostock), Taras Kacharaba (Slavia Prague) and Oleksandr Zubkov (Ferencváros) had joined the squad. On Monday the big hitters Vitaliy Mykolenko (Everton), Eduard Sobol (Club Brugge), Andriy Yarmolenko (West Ham), Oleksandr Zinchenko (Manchester City), and Ruslan Malinovskyi (Atalanta) pitched up in time for an internal bounce game at the training camp today (Thursday).

Scotland, meanwhile, are not the only team nervously watching the fate of a key player in Saturday’s Champions League final.

Andriy Lunin of Real Madrid will also be a late arrival after plans for a final warm-up against the Democratic Republic of Congo were scrapped.

In an ominous warning to Scotland, Todos concluded: ‘I would say the national team has never been as patriotic as it is now.

‘There is a new sense of precisely what it means to put on that shirt. And that’s what Scotland will have to combat next week.’