‘A game of survival’: Ukraine prepare for final World Cup push in Wales

Along sections of Ukraine’s frontline, more trivial concerns could take hold for an hour or two. When Taras Stepanenko checked his phone after anchoring the midfield masterfully at Hampden Park, one of the first among more than 100 messages was from a close friend who has been serving in the army since Russia invaded. The soldiers had been able to find a screen and the muscle memory of football fans kicked in again when Callum McGregor briefly gave Scotland hope of a comeback. “He is at a difficult point, fighting every day,” Stepanenko said of his associate. “He told me the army at the border didn’t think the ball had crossed the line.”

By then, Stepanenko and his teammates had made sure the debate was, save for providing valuable escapism, irrelevant. They outclassed Scotland for the vast majority of their playoff semi-final: the maelstrom of emotions and profound sense of responsibility each of the squad had been feeling were turned into an advantage, not a burden.

“It’s come from our heart and our soul,” Stepanenko said. “Sometimes you can’t say what you feel. When I heard the anthem of Ukraine I wanted to cry.” Yet within minutes Ukraine had clicked into a performance that felt cool, considered, lucid, logical. It had seemed reasonable to wonder whether they would tear away like headless chickens and burn themselves out; instead they put on a study in control after a scruffy first 10 minutes and it was a reminder, heightened upon glancing down the starting XI’s parent clubs, that these are professionals of exceptional pedigree as well as fierce patriots. Ukraine were driven by their hearts but won with their heads, doing what they knew.

That was certainly evident in the display of Oleksandr Zinchenko, who ran the