On October 9, 1999, a football match in Moscow became more than a sporting event. Russia and Ukraine finished 1-1 at the Luzhniki Stadium, and Andriy Shevchenko's equalizer against goalkeeper Alexander Filimonov knocked the hosts out of the race for Euro 2000.
For Ukraine, a draw was enough. Russia needed a win to move on. Shevchenko's goal came at a time when the hosts were already looking like winners, and the subsequent reaction showed how much importance was attached to the match.
„Did you score for us?“
After the match, Vladimir Putin entered the Ukrainian team's dressing room. At the time, he was the Prime Minister of Russia, a former director of the Federal Security Service, and the man Boris Yeltsin had already named as his successor.
Putin turned to the 23-year-old Shevchenko with the question: „Did you score for us?“. After the affirmative answer, he said: „Okay, I'll remember you“. According to the analysis of Ukrainskaya Pravda, the remark may have seemed like an attempt at a joke at the time, but later it began to be perceived in a different political context.
Former coach of the Russian national team Oleg Romantsev describes the experience after the match as a strong shock. "When it happened, I felt like I fainted, I was like a robot," he says. According to him, he was given cognac, and the disappointment was so severe that he considered suicide.
From football to politics
The match is being played at a time when Russia is still trying to restore its self-esteem after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Sport is one of the few areas in which the state can seek international recognition, and the match with Ukraine is also loaded with the expectation of proving Russian superiority.
Even before the match, the Russian publication “Sovetskiy Sport“ published the headline “Fight, Khokhlov, save Russia!“. Khokhlov is the Russian midfielder Dmitry Khokhlov, but the wording also uses an ethnically charged word for Ukrainians. After the draw, the publication tried to present the publication as a joke, but the title remained a sign of the attitude towards the match.
On the Russian television show “One on One“ in 1997, Leonid Kravchuk warned against treating Ukraine as a territory dependent on Moscow. “You say you are going to Ukraine. But we are not a territory, we are a state“, declared the first Ukrainian president.
A goal as part of a larger conflict
In the following years, Shevchenko became an international star and in 2003 celebrated winning the Champions League with a blue-and-yellow flag. In Russia, however, he has long been portrayed as “our boy”, despite his public affiliation with independent Ukraine.
Ukrainskaya Pravda links the memory of the match to a wider series of conflicts surrounding Ukrainian statehood – from the dispute over Tuzla Island to the Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity. The publication specifies that Shevchenko's goal cannot be cited as a direct cause of Russia's war against Ukraine. However, it fits into a long-term process in which Ukrainian independence is perceived in Russia as a political and national challenge.
Thus, a header at “Luzhniki“ remains not only a football memory. For Ukrainians, it is a moment of self-affirmation, but for the Russian public – a defeat that will long be remembered as a national humiliation.
Sources: pravda.com.ua