Ukraine have more important battles but World Cup fight is one Scotland can't allow them to win

When the bombs started to drop on February 24, Oleksandr Petrakov marched out of his home in Kyiv to enlist in his country’s Territorial Defence Corps.

At 64, Ukraine’s head coach was sent home but the words of the army officials who turned him away still ring in his ears.

“They said, ‘You are too old and don’t have any military skills,” Petrakov recalled. “Instead, you better bring us to the World Cup. ’”

Midfielder Taras Stepanenko, his wife and three boys all aged eight and under, cowered in the basement of their home as bombs rained down nearby. He eventually moved his family out of the capital to Chernivtsi, a safer haven, but one which has been bombed since.

Another midfielder, Oleksandr Karavayev, was born and bred in the southern city of Kherson, now under Russian occupation. His brother, a seaman, was out of the country when the invasion began and isn’t allowed back into the city.

Real life people, real life stories of the horror that has visited some of the players who will walk out at Hampden with more than a football match at stake.

And let’s face it, if they weren’t playing us, we’d want them to win.

So it’s perfectly understandable Scotland will be cast in the role of villain if we add to Ukraine’s misery tonight by knocking them out of the World Cup.

But it’s only right and fair Steve Clarke’s men are given the chance to do just that. And for that matter, Ukraine are presented with the same opportunity to qualify for Qatar on the field of play rather than a FIFA boardroom.

That said, if the suits had granted an extra place in the desert come November and allocated it to this brave, unbowed nation, there’s not a soul with an ounce of mercy in their heart who would have begrudged them it.

That would