Football is good and sacred, a social phenomenon, the opiate of the people, a more important matter – according to the legendary Bill Shankly – than life and death, but lies are bad, of course they take a back seat to real ones, which have been everyday life in Ukraine for the past year and a half.

Certainly helpful, empowering, a way out and a refuge, and with this usefulness underscores the importance it has in people’s souls.

Typical example of Dnipro. Obviously the sporting situation as Panathinaikos claims qualification for the 3rd division^The The Champions League qualifying round is the one that takes the lion’s share of the news within the borders, but hierarchically, the reality of the Greens’ opponents, their fans, their fellow citizens goes far beyond anything sporting, anything football.

The Russian invasion, beginning of the 24th century^her In February 2022, the then Dnipro team had just returned – just a day later – from their winter training camp in Turkey and the foreign footballers on the squad stayed for two days in the basement of the team’s training facilities, together with then-coach Igor Jovitchevich, to protect themselves from Russian missiles and warplanes.

They could hear at close quarters the local airport being hit and leveled without being able to see the destruction without being able to communicate very well with the outside world as communications were cut. The locals stayed with their own people and families, but all were looking for a way to safely leave their now war-torn country.

Most of them managed to leave Dnipro after the first, extremely dangerous and completely unimaginable situation of what is happening and what awaits them in 2022. And to this day they have not returned.

The team’s honorary president, Yuri Bereza, immediately enlisted in the Ukrainian army and took command of a company he named Dnipro.

He remains on the front lines to this day, following his team’s games as often as he can, with his soldiers – most of them from the wider region and fans of Dnipro such as the team’s former goalkeeper’s brother Valery Yurchuk, or the most famous journalist covering Dnipro’s daily life, Viktor Ogozin (met twice and now recovering in a local hospital) – and often (and not only) becomes public recipients thanks to the executives of Panathinaikos’ rivals.

The two refugee centers Uzhhorod and Kozice

With the game against the “Greens” Dnipro begins its second away season in a row. Last year they played in Uzhhorod, 1170 kilometers west of their homeland, without fans in the stands for over a year – for safety reasons.

Only in international competitions, now crossing the Ukrainian border and using Kozyce as a base, do the Ukrainian runners-up players have people to support them.

Kozyce is less than 100 kilometers from Uzhgorod and thousands of Ukrainians fled there because of the war. Today, the families of most football players from Dnipro live there, whose playing base is essentially divided between the two cities of Uzhhorod and Kozice.

With an unrelentingly difficult everyday life. Even this short one-hour route often takes six to seven times longer, mainly due to the safety protocol and the very demanding controls that are carried out along this route.

But it was precisely Kozice’s alternative that made Dnipro one of the first (if not the first) Ukrainian team to manage not only to retain at least some foreign footballers in their roster in the middle of the war, but also to attract others, such as Argentine midfielder Blanco and Brazilian goalkeeper Walef.

Certainly secondary, but for a group to make this trip (either by road or train) at least twice a week is an unimaginable cost. And it goes without saying that it is not just a financial matter, but one that adjusts everything that a “typical” football team (can) plan, eg recovery, training cycles, everything that is guaranteed under normal conditions.

But here too, everyday life, the tragedy that war brings, goes beyond football, but on the other hand it is also benefited by it. Whenever in Kozice, players and all Dnipro officials meet daily with their escaped compatriots in specially designated rooms, in shopping centers, exhibition halls, even in camps and houses, whether organized or individually.

After all, they are all refugees. Everyone helps everyone. In every way imaginable. Because even if they are no longer in the heart of the fire, it touches them. They have all left their own people, friends, relatives who are left behind, their homes – nobody knows – to bomb and rocket attacks – whether they will still be standing in the next moment.

Dnipro’s top scorer Artem Dovbyk did not see his parents for eight months after the outbreak of war. He watched them last year on the outskirts of Kiev against Kovalivka (9/11/2022) and then scored his second hat-trick (out of three) in last year’s championship.

This game ended without a break. Strictly followed protocol dictates that when the sirens sound, everyone on the field goes to a safe haven. Another essential point, perhaps the most important of all, that the stadiums where football is played in Ukraine must have: an underground shelter.

The number of last year’s matches (this year’s championship starts next weekend, however, Dnipro’s opening game against Vorskla was postponed to better prepare for the games against Panathinaikos) of Dnipro where this method was used, with a break of at least half an hour and a maximum of 1.5 hours, is in the double digits.

Apparently even more throughout Ukraine. But everything, even after months (like, for example, a game of Dnipro against Oleksandria), went on and was completed.

And so the football goes on. And so life goes on amid the ravages of war.