Ukraine beat Scotland and demonstrate how sport works, plus more Lionel Messi magic - The Warm-Up

THURSDAY'S BIG STORIES A Good Result Ad/> Generally speaking, a team becomes the neutrals' favourite by playing attractive football, or fielding interesting players, or going about their business in a charming and endearing fashion. These things are all true enough of Ukraine, of course, and yet the ongoing Russian invasion, the background of bloodshed and chaos, made last night's playoff an altogether stranger affair. /> Football'We played for those who fight in the trenches' — Emotional Petrakov after Scotland win2 HOURS AGO This game should have been played in April.

Half the Ukranian team hadn't played a game since the war began. The team needed special permission to travel, since all Ukrainian men are required under martial law to remain in their homeland. Rarely can so many not usually bothered have been so keen to see a team win.

Rarely can an opposition anthem have been so well received. But in the end, any worries that Scotland might make themselves unpopular by winning, or might find themselves on the wrong end of some mysterious narrative destiny, were laid to rest. Ukraine were the better team, and Ukraine won by playing the better football.

The suggestions before the game that Scotland should step aside, or somehow help to contrive a Ukraine victory, were obviously daft and were treated with the contempt they deserved. But that daftness reveals something worth considering. The value of sport comes through the playing of sport; the winning of a game or the reaching of a World Cup is special, for those sides that don't do so as a matter of course, because it is a thing that is earned.