In the low-lit gloom, Mariupol Women’s players huddle around their phones and try to work out how long the delay will last. “A MiG-31 took off, that’ll be about an hour,” reckons one voice, but nobody can ever know for sure. Ten minutes ago they were holding their own against EMC-Podillya, edging their way towards half-time and the prospect of a creditable away point, when the air-raid siren’s fearful wail sent them straight down the tunnel and back into the minibus. Now they are sitting in the basement of a vocational college 500 metres around the corner, a facility repurposed as an air-raid shelter for the surrounding community during wartime.
