There are brief moments in football which offer more searing insight than any amount of hot-aired punditry rhetoric.
At Goodison, there were two such fleeting portraits, which spoke volumes about both teams, and their respective positions at the moment. As the final whistle went, there was a distinctive pause as the Everton support, so wracked with nerves they were subdued for long periods, computed what had just happened, and then let out a primal roar.
As they did, Vitallii Mykolenko sunk to his knees and then lay on his back on the turf, arms spread wide in an almost religious pose, an exhausted, yet still exuberant celebration expressing a relief and joy which was telling enough, even before you consider the defender’s circumstance. Mykolenko is from Cherasy in central Ukraine, where Russian troops are reported to have attacked with vacuum bombs, a particularly brutal weapon whose use is regarded as a ‘war crime’.
