‘We could play at Wembley’: Ukraine manager on war, the World Cup and his hatred of Russia

When the war broke out in the early hours of 24 February, Oleksandr Petrakov, the manager of Ukraine’s men’s national football team, chose not to leave his home in the capital, Kyiv, as the Russians advanced and shells dropped, but to try to join the fight.

“My family told me to go to western Ukraine but I refused. I said: ‘I am from Kyiv, I can’t leave,’” says Petrakov. “I didn’t think it would be correct as people have to defend and I can’t run. I thought, if they come to Kyiv I will pick up a weapon and defend my city.”

He adds: “I am 64 but I felt it was normal to do this. I think I could take two or three enemies out.”

A Russian speaker from childhood, Petrakov now sticks to Ukrainian in public and while some are sad about Vladimir Putin’s war and others are angry, he admits to a more visceral emotion. “It’s just hate. It is not anger, but people hate those who invaded their land. We need time to calm down but for now it is just hate. They have broken our countries for years.”

Petrakov tried to sign up to Ukraine’s territorial defence, the reservists being deployed across the country to fight the Russians. He spoke to a member of Ukraine’s government but was advised that his lack of military experience was an issue and that he might be better employed elsewhere.

“I was told: ‘You have to sign a contract and someone will command you.’ He said: ‘I know you, that would be very hard. You don’t need this, you are another kind of person.’ And I’m 64, you understand?”

Petrakov, who took over from the former Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko as manager last August, is instead trying to get Ukraine’s men’s team, for all the horrors of the last five weeks, to this November’s World Cup. The team were due to play Scotland in a