Dynamo Kyiv wrapped up their peace tour of football matches undefeated, beating Swiss team FC Basel 3-2 in the Match for Peace in Switzerland. The game was played at Parc Saint-Jacques on the evening of Wednesday, May 4. But the main events on this European tour and match were taking place elsewhere.
I was fortunate to have been invited to this superb event. The stadium was decked out with signs against the war and Ukrainian flags were in abundance. Radiant children in red and white and blue and yellow were present, with mothers holding Ukrainian flags and their children in their arms. It was a nice atmosphere. I don’t know a thing about football. It was my first time at a stadium to see a match. The evening was magical for many Ukrainians and for me too because this friendly match between FC Basel and Dynamo Kyiv meant a lot of people could forget the war in Ukraine for an hour and a half. Both teams put on a great show on the pitch.
Indeed, with the Dynamo Kyiv team being 100% Ukrainian, as its foreign players had left the country at the start of the war, Dynamo did better than hold their own with the team that is second in the Swiss championship. Dynamo’s Oleksandr Karavaev opened the scoring after a shot by Vladyslav Vanat had hit the post and Karavaev hit the rebound into the net. The goalscorer then hit the crossbar of young goalkeeper Felix Gebhardt’s goal just four minutes later.
Hungarian Adam Szalai equalized just before the break for the hosts. On the hour mark, the hosts were ahead when a shot by Dutchman Wouter Burger took a deflection off Italian teammate Sebastiano Esposito to wrong foot the Dynamo Kyiv goalie Heorhiy Bushchan. But the story remained beautiful right up to the end. Oleksandr Andriyevsky and Denys Popov enabled the Ukrainians from Kyiv to edge pass the Swiss in the space of a few minutes at the end of the match.
Ukrainian fans show their appreciation at the end of the game. (https://fcdynamo.com/en/gallery/blagodiinii-matc-bazel-dinamo-23)
This game, played in front of just over 15,000 people, was organized as part of Dynamo Kyiv’s tour of Europe in recent weeks. The current football season in Ukraine was suspended due to the war. The Ukrainian club, twice winner of the European Cup Winners Cup, has a rich tradition in European football. At 76, the current coach, Romanian Mircea Lucescu, has known and seen everything in football. This is what he had to say about the match in Basel. “It’s the only sport that touches so many people around the world, in such a simple and direct way. What we experienced with this friendly match was an extraordinary moment of solidarity and love.” The legendary coach also refuses to allow the war in Ukraine to be forgotten. “You must never get used to it, make sure that the atrocities don’t become a simple routine that you see on the news,” he underlined.
I had the chance to meet Mircea Lucescu, and some of players after the match at the hotel. We obviously talked about Kyiv and the war, we all know that Dynamo is also an ambassador for peace for Ukraine. After all, this club is a great source of pride for Ukrainians and part of their national history.
Former footballer Andriy Shevchenko, top Ukrainian model Julia Gershun, Franck Labourey, a humanitarian events organizer and myself will soon be organizing an event in the form of a concert to help Ukrainian refugees.
We have already identified the main areas, which encompass help for mothers, pregnant women, children’s education, artificial limbs for the injured, psychological and financial support, rebuilding of hospitals, schools and the construction of rehabilitation centers and infrastructure.
Professor (h.c.) Olivier VÉDRINE
Journalist, former TV presenter on various Ukrainian national channels, Editor-in-chief of Russian Monitor (Russian opposition online newspaper) https://rusmonitor.com/, Member of the Board of Directors of the Jean Monnet Association https://jean-monnet.fr/?p=103 and author of several books
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.
