Perhaps the most anticipated game in the country’s history, what a shame many Ukraine fans weren’t able to attend. Some, of course, are no longer with us.

Half an hour before kick off a friend in Poltava messaged: “We’ve just got a bomb near my mum. They’re OK but very scared. Have a nice time.”

Which pretty much put everything in perspective. In the two hours or so of this match, it’s likely a few Ukrainians died on the front line fighting Putin.

This game was for them.

The meringue

It’s called the Allianz Arena but on my previous visit with my butty Vince – attending as representatives of the Ivory Coast (hit link to read) – it looked like a sparkling cake from the baker’s, what with its funky exterior carapace. A stadium good enough to eat.

At the central station Manuel Neuer said:

On the underground to the ground, Romanians flooded in their thousands to the match. Some Ukrainians managed a chant of ‘Putin Khuylo’ – Putin is a dickhead – popularised in 2014 by Metalist Kharkiv and Shakhtar Donetsk fans.

At the ground a fruity-voiced PA woman spoke such poshly-inflected English I wanted to date her.

Lothar Mattheus, nine tournaments and 150 caps for the Germs, teeth gleaming brighter than the sun, was doing it for TV. Here he is sans teeth:

And, with, on the stadium wall.

Great teeth!

A nice surprise was that there was no overweening pong of fried onions and offal. I was convinced several guys would be wandering round in Bratwurst costumes leeringly inviting people to sample a sausage.

Instead, we got some sugary heart-shaped gingerbread/chocolate combos with treacly messages for your missus/boyfriend/cat.

Achtung! Missed a trick by not producing a Putin Khuylo though.

Oh dear

The meringue was a raucous, rollicking, rocking Romanian riot of yellow. I figured they’d have about 5,000 fans but it felt like 50,000. Hats off.

Ukraine started strongly and looked like they would rout Romania.

The yellow peril quietened down quite quickly and it is no understatement to say their opening goal after half an hour was a huge shock. Totally against the run of play.

After that, on reflection, it was the fans wot won it.

Even at 2-0 I thought Ukraine would at least draw but they descended into Bobby Gould-era Wales, and mugged themselves.

Now it’s last chance saloon time already. But I have a solution.

Drop Mudryk for the mad monster himself Yarmolenko, who surely turned up for the match in a cage attended by firefighters ready to douse him if he started snarling.

At a Dynamo-Shakhtar match a few years back he was so barking tonto he was scary at 100 yards away. It surely occurred to him that he should kick the linesman over the crossbar. Think David Batty without any sense of self-remorse. Sergio Ramos – but can play well too.

Ukraine looked like they required a Dunga-like headbanger to bang their own heads together, scare the ball boys and rile the opposition. Plus he’s a good player and would provide the crosses for Dobvyk, brilliantly marked out of the game, to score.

Then retire Yarmo after the tournament and put him in Kyiv zoo with the gorillas, the safest place for him if not for the gorillas.

Football’s so simple innit?

Romania

Bit of a turn-up this lot. Great support, very few wankers. I’ve almost forgiven them for scuppering Welsh chances of reaching the 1994 World Cup. That bloody hurt, that did. Mixed nicely with the Ukrainians.

They didn’t half celebrate. So let’s end with the slightly sinister looking black shirt crew: