‘We had been led to believe this team had no hope – tonight, we dare to dream’
Russians and the visiting foreign hordes united in Moscow to proclaim a host nation transformed
CHIEF SPORTS FEATURE WRITER in Moscow
‘Moscow is the heart of Russia,” wrote GK Chesterton, “even if the heart is broken.” And as a dusky half-light fell over Red Square last night, it was impossible not to feel that one had reached the molten core of this World Cup. The Moroccans sang from cafe tables, the Argentines exchanged call-andresponse songs in front of ranks of bemused policemen, and roaming bands of Peruvians gave further weight to the suspicion that there was nobody left in Lima.
Most conspicuous of all, though, were the Russians, who took to these vast acres in one of the most spontaneous displays of patriotic pride seen outside a Victory Day parade. The cross-section was vivid: men with faces painted in white, blue and red tricolores, women resplendent in their sarafans, and children craning for a glimpse of a match 450 miles away on the BBC’S screens beside St Basil’s Cathedral. They began their evening in a state of mild apprehension but ended it, three goals later, in one of utter delirium.
There is a crackling electricity about following even modest World Cup home teams at their own parties. From Eric Wynalda’s 1994 equaliser for the United States in Detroit to Siphiwe Tshabalala’s opening goal for South Africa in 2010, at a stadium in the heart of Soweto, unexpected success for the hosts can galvanise such occasions like nothing else. Russia, on that score, have just rewritten the manual. A team officially ranked as worse than Bolivia or Burkina Faso have swept to the verge of the last 16 on a wave of collective bewilderment. “Stunning,” said Sergei Vasiliev, in full kit outside the Zolotaya Vobla, which revels in its billing as the “people’s bar” of Moscow. “At first we were all just curious to see how they would do. Nobody expected this.”
Even some of the tourists in town could not fail to be moved. Several Moroccans, for example, paired their own traditional garb with kitschy ushanka-hats out of solidarity. One of them, Rachid Alaoui, from Casablanca, explained that he and his friends were backing Russia in recognition of the welcome they had received after a tortuous journey here.
Having reached the country via an elaborate northern passage, including hitchhikes across Sweden, Finland and Estonia, they were effusive about the warmth of Russian hospitality. “We are with Russia because of how they have treated us,” Alaoui said. “The people? Wonderful.”
The tentative manner with which Russians have embraced the Sbornaya team springs, in part, from an almost pathological fear of losing face on the global stage. For sporting idols, they still turn first to their ice hockey team, who marked a gold medal at this year’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang with a proud rendition of the national anthem, in defiance of a strict policy of neutrality enforced as punishment for years of institutionalised doping.
Vladimir Putin, likewise, has left little doubt of his preference for anything but football. His patronage of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi was borne of genuine conviction, while his reaction to Russia’s 5-1 win over Saudi Arabia suggested only blank incredulity. After all, it was only in 2016 that the president was effectively disowning the players after a friendly loss to Qatar. But these are wondrous times for fair-weather fans.
Now, with Russia’s eclipse of every expectation sending a power surge through the country’s sporting soul, there is no choice but for him to use the moment to buttress his own prestige. The ambience throughout Moscow, as most locals attest, is far from normal. In a capital that typically tends towards the monochrome, the visiting hordes, led by the Latin Americans, have turned even the area besides Lenin’s Mausoleum into a riot of colour.
But after a 3-1 win over Egypt all but confirmed Russia’s vault into the second round, it is the hosts who are providing a psychedelic splash. Even on the designer boutiques dotted around Red Square, the facades were bedecked last night in messages of love for the motherland.
“Can you believe it?” screamed Anna Afanasyeva, after Denis Cherysev’s goal triggered joy unconfined. “We had been led to think this team had no hope. Tonight, we dare to dream.”
When Sepp Blatter unveiled Russia’s winning World Cup bid more than seven years ago, it was widely feared that it would be a forbidding, austere affair, the very antithesis of romance. And yet, the Sbornaya’s glorious emergence from left-field has reduced such preconceptions to dust.