It's 112 days since Andriy Yarmolenko opened the scoring in one of the most emotionally charged international football matches ever played at Hampden. That World Cup play-off semi-final would end in victory - and tears - for Ukraine.
And most of world football cried with them as war raged on back in their homeland. Returning to the national stadium last night Yarmolenko was quick to remind everyone that nothing has changed in the three-and-a-half months since that 3-1 defeat of Steve Clarke ’s side.
His country remains in a relentless war against their Russian aggressors with casualties being taken by the day - even if it doesn’t top the news agendas across the globe on a daily basis like it did back then. Football remains little more than a 90-minute distraction for his people back home. Yet the big winger also knows that for that hour-and-a-half it can also be one of the strongest weapons for bringing joy to those people caught up in a living hell.
He said: “Nothing has changed since last time. We still have war in Ukraine and we want to bring joy to the Ukraine fans so we are going to play for our country, our people, everyone who is living these days in our country.
“We want to distract the Ukranian people from war, from all this terror and incredible hard situation. The team wants to bring a smile at least for 90 minutes to the faces of Ukrainians back home.”
Yarmolenko’s pre-match press conference came just hours after UEFA banned Russia from Euro 2024. The 32-year-old former West Ham forward wasn’t holding back as he called on the sporting world to continue to isolate Vladimir Putin’s country.
He said: “My thoughts are quite simple. Russian football, Russian sport, should be totally isolated. This is a country of terrorists. A country that kills Ukrainians, kills Ukrainian children.
“We cannot just talk about sport when something that terrible is happening. All Ukrainian players, they want Russia to be isolated on every level. We cannot allow Russia to take part in any competition while its army are killing the civilian population in Ukraine.
“So the stand of the Ukrainian team is pretty unified. Russia should be banned from anything.”
Ukraine are without injured Arsenal ace Oleksandr Zinchenko for the clash which, should they win, will see them edge four points clear of the Scots with two games to play. Boss Oleksandr Petrakov is confident Everton fell back Vitaliy Mykolenko and Atalanta playmaker Viktor Kovalenko will be passed fit after picking up knocks.
And Yarmalenko said: “I remember Hampden, the memories are brilliant but at the same time that’s history. We have a new game, a new battle and we have to concentrate and be totally attentive to what will happen this time.
“We are just thinking about winning this game. It’s always like that in football. We know Scotland are a really strong team but we also need to think about our game.
"We have our plan for the game, we just concentrate. We know how to play and hopefully we are going to win. But we know that’s going to be tough because it’s Scotland who are a really strong team.”
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