Ukraine’s sensational victory over Sweden in the Euro 2020 on June 29 enraptured and united Ukrainians both at home and abroad. But what did it tell us about the Ukrainians themselves and their responses?
Undoubtedly, the victory was a moment of immense pride and happiness, and it pushed objectivity into the background.
The triumph overshadowed other questions, such as the overall quality of the tactics and play of the Ukrainian team, and how, had they faced and an even stronger team then the robust Swedes, they would have fared.
Yes, Ukraine was good enough, if extremely fortunate, to have won against the Swedes in a very tough game. But how, given their recent performances and play would they have held up to say, the Germans, French, or Portuguese, who have been knocked out by the likes of Denmark, Switzerland, and Spain.
I watched the Ukraine-Sweden game in Barcelona and listened to the comments of the Spanish and Catalan viewers. They had just seen an amazing game in which England had recovered from seemingly being dominated by a very confident German team and went on to win.
The response to the Ukraine-Sweden match was mostly one of disappointment with the quality of the football. The Swedes appeared to be the better team and both sides had chances and lucky escapes which livened up the game.
But until quite late into it, it was, compared to other games in Euro 2020, a rather dull affair.
I made some instant comments on my Facebook page reflecting my view of what I was watching.
“Great goal by Zinchenko,” I noted. “But to win, Ukraine has to change tactics. Too much pussyfooting around in midfield and back passes. Not enough forward play to penetrate through the Swedish defense. Sweden maintains the attacks and will win unless Ukraine responds in kind.”
I got even more discouraged as the game proceeded and the Swedes equalized. The game had livened up, but Ukraine was still hesitant about pushing forward. Then we were into additional time. I wrote:
“1-1 and 30 extra minutes to go. Exciting stuff, but Ukraine needs to show they are determined to win. Too much negative play. Not sure Shevchenko [Andriy Shevchenko, the team’s trainer and a former soccer star himself] is the manager/tactician needed at this level.”
Sweden had a player sent off and at the very last minute, Ukraine managed to score the all-important winning goal. Even as the Ukrainian supporters erupted and the emotional players and their colleagues, despite their exhaustion, celebrated, I jotted down:
“Great that Ukraine came through with a wonderful finish in extra time! But much homework remains to be done. Their game has to be raised to a higher level generally and their tactics reviewed. Still, congratulations Ukraine, and well played Sweden, if a bit too rough in the final stages. Both sides had great chances.”
We know just how much this victory meant and how jubilantly it was received in Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora. Incidentally, hundreds of Ukrainians in Britain made their way to Glasgow in Scotland to cheer the Ukrainian side, and as far away as North America and Australia Ukraine’s fans were ecstatic.
Ukrainians are an emotional people. When fortune and courage favor them, they tend to get carried away and overlook deeper underlying realities and celebrate without necessarily drawing proper lessons and making appropriate adjustments.
The victory over the Swedes saw Shevchenko hailed as a genius and Ukraine’s team as virtually one of the greatest ever.
Yes, the result was great, but very few commentators paused to ask just how good Ukraine’s team, their manager, tactics, and style of play really have been in this contest compared to the general quality of play we have seen from other teams at Euro2 020.
So, the point here is that, just as in politics, whether geopolitics or concerning internal challenges, Ukrainians should avoid their usual insular perspective and try to see things from a broader one. To reflect on how they and their performance fit into the larger context of things and how this impacts on perceptions and possibilities.
Sport aside, on a deeper lever, the victory also exposed lingering questions about what it means to be Ukrainian today, and whether language should be the primary criterion for assessing patriotism.
President Volodymyr Zelensky was prompt to stress that the victory had united Ukrainians in a remarkable way transcending all inherent differences. His message was that at moments like this, when Ukrainians regardless of their regional, linguistic, and ethnic background, are united in supporting a symbol not only of Ukraine as a state, but implicitly, also of the political nation that had crystallized on its territory, the country feels its strength and cohesion.
But immediately, his message was challenged by political detractors who continue to accuse him of adopting a “what’s the difference” attitude on cultural and linguistic issues.
And the pretext? The fact that members of the proud Ukrainian team had responded to journalists after the game in Russian was condemned as unworthy and tantamount to betrayal by diehard proponents of the use of the Ukrainian language as the sine qua non of being a true Ukrainian.
The staunch proponents of the notion that those who speak Russian rather than Ukrainian, especially at public events, are suspect Ukrainians, lacking in patriotism and displaying a conscious or sub-conscious submission to Russian tutelage, are hardly helping to foster national cohesion.
Just as for the Russian fifth columnists, who protest along the lines prescribed by the Kremlin that Ukraine is repressing “Russian-speakers,” they are sowing division.
It is, after all rather pathetic, to advance the view that the members of the team that brought Ukraine victory over Sweden are somehow unworthy of this. That they and should not be representing Ukraine, because for whatever reason they prefer to speak in Russian.
Does that mean that half or more of Kyiv, or the country as a whole, who speak Russian, are somehow unpatriotic? Get real!
As numerous of those responding to the latest attacks from Ukrainian ethnocentricism have pointed out, it is not just about those who have brought temporary glory on the soccer field. But those innumerable Russian-speaking heroes who have given, and continue to risk, their lives for Ukraine in the war with Russia regardless of whether they speak Ukrainian or Russian.
Is their contribution to the cause of Ukraine to be so insensitively dismissed by those who ascribe to themselves the moral – read nationalistic – high ground? Those who continue to prefer to speak Russian will not be won over by such tactics, only antagonized.
Putin and those justifying Russian aggression are left flat-footed when they are exposed to Ukrainian patriots speaking to the outside world of their national pride and joy in Russian. Hardly fits in with the image the Kremlin seeks to project of Ukraine as an intolerant neo-fascist entity.
For Ukraine is an ongoing 21st-century European work in progress, not a 19th-century one with the outdated exclusive ethnocentric concepts of that period.
The problem here is that whereas soccer is a game in which rules and fair play need to be respected, with independent arbiters (referees, linesmen, etc.), the political game in Ukraine continues without such notions. The idea of “sport,” in this sense, is still missing, and the rules are made up as we go along. We see many crude fouls and rarely the red cards they deserve.
Anyway, we await to see how Ukraine will do in the difficult game ahead of them on July 3 in Rome against the resurgent English team which has just stunned the proud Germans with their impressive victory.
Let’s watch, enjoy, but also learn from the experience.
