There is a sports bar in Lviv, in western Ukraine, called Cantona Pub, that caters to Manchester United fans. Walk inside and the pub looks like a typical British watering hole—brick and wallpapered walls are adorned with Man United’s familiar red-and-white jerseys, scarves and other football paraphernalia. Some of the club’s all-time greats adorn the walls: Ryan Giggs, George Best, Wayne Rooney, Roy Keane and Eric Cantona himself peer through picture frame glass, frozen in time at the zenith of their careers.
Under normal circumstances, Cantona Pub would have been packed last night with fans watching Ukraine’s World Cup qualifier match against Scotland. But these are hardly normal circumstances. Torn apart by Russia’s renewed invasion on Feb. 24, Ukraine is a country at war. A nightly curfew conflicted with kickoff and prevented most venues across the country from screening the match.
“Normally, we watch all the big games in our pub with friends and a lot of other people,” Cantona’s owner, Andy Markovets, explains. “In fact, we would have had all the tables booked weeks before such a big game,” he added. “But now we face a war. There is curfew. And football isn’t the most important thing.”
