Lviv’s lively street celebrations almost defy belief more than 550 days after Russia launched its crazed invasion.
Above, crowds gathered to banish the blues as a series of acts entertained citizens before the city suffered its first bomb attack shortly after I left for Kyiv.
This chap looks like he’s propping up the Lviv National Opera by himself.
He’s actually a war-inspired work of art by an Italian artist.
He’s just in the bottom left hand corner here.
It seemed like this was played on the moon, at any rate.
Obviously it wasn’t, just in case you were wondering. And there were no Clangers at this game. Honest. I went looking.
Ukraine Premier League (UPL) has been played behind closed doors since Russia’s invasion in February last year.
For Shakhtar, effectively evicted from Donetsk in 2014, it’s been life on the road ever since.
Continue reading Football on the moon – Shakhtar Donetsk 1 Obolon Kyiv 0
Wednesday 8pm: It’s as if there is no war – Lviv is celebrating itself.
Crowds throng the half-mile long piazza in front of the city’s opera house under the watchful eye of national poet Taras Shevchenko, looking down benignly from his plinth, and probably delighted by the spectacle.
Children scamper through the ornamental fountain; old men play backgammon with an intensity you can almost smell; babushki gossip, flashing their immaculate dentistry; Roma children as young as four try to sell you flowers.
A couple snog on one bench – unusual to see that in Ukraine – a sozzled alcoholic straddles the next one. He looks like he’s making love to it.
A girl sporting a T-shirt with the slogan Killer Tits (not in Cyrillic) scoffs candy floss with her boyfriend; teenage schoolgirls watch the musicians raptly, clinging together and grooming each other’s long tresses.
And then there’s what can only be described as the best street musicians in the world providing defiance/joy/inspiration.
Smash and grab Rayo sneaked past a side with an impeccable European pedigree in a top-drawer statement victory.
The boys from the barrio are beginning to mug established Spanish names – not through a muscular display of bootboy thuggery but with a thoughtful and calm approach.
Superb defence frustrates big names perhaps thinking they’re in for an easy win, and killer goals just at the right time.
I think Picasso would approve of this version of his great work.
Someone has painted his Guernica on a bunker constructed during the Spanish Civil War by the republicans to protect part of the Catalan coast had Franco launched a sea attack.
And after the war was concluded an impoverished family of seven even lived in it, as there was nowhere else. And presumably free.
Away from the swank and swagger of Real and Atletico, the boys from the barrio are back in La Liga punching above their weight again.
Now Gareth Bale has retired there’s no hope of seeing him in the lightning stripe kit. Perhaps he’ll buy them!
Anyway, after thumping Real Madrid in November this was a good test of whether Rayo could come up with another statement win against the mercurial San Sebastian side who were quite a long way back in third behind Real and Barcelona.
First gig in Madrid and they went down a storm. Of course.
The capital city’s smart set turned out in numbers for this fund-raising tour by Ukraine’s most popular musical export.
It was something of a surprise that people got there at all.
At the first floor Sheraton bar, Mark Hughes (72 caps, 16 goals) was being berated by a fan. “What the fuck have you ever done for Welsh football? We’ve done fuck all in the last ten years.”
Consternation. One of the greatest figures in the history Welsh football was copping a mouthful. Remember, this was his first game in sole charge of the national team.
A fan – I’ll call him The Camel, not because he drinks like one, but because he’ll get the hump if named – continued ranting.
The coach, Mark Bowen (41 caps, three goals) tried to intervene with a view to calming matters, whatever they were, down.
Continue reading O Camel ye faithful – Qatar v Wales (pt two)
IN FEBRUARY 2000 the Welsh football team was a shellshocked shitshow that would have given Michael Sheen shingles.
Wales were stranded in a seemingly permanent existential crisis, marooned in terms of self-regard and status – people openly scorned fans as being idiots for going to, say, Moldova, which they had hitherto thought was some type of cheese.
On a weekend dominated by news that super clubs want to create an elite Snob League, Madrid minnows Rayo provided a glittering riposte.
Teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy raggedy Rayo battered big boys Barca for 50 minutes before gloriously throwing it all away.
Continue reading Hasta la Rayista, baby! Rayo Vallecano 2 Barcelona 3
Central Moscow was a revelation during the World Cup as fans mingled and danced their way through the night in Nikolskaya, a long shopping street that runs off Red Square.
Behaviour that wouldn’t be tolerated by authorities by local people was ignored. And thousands of Muscovites came to watch and take part.
Miles from Nowhere 