Trauma can produce a devastating clarity. It paints the world in new and shocking colours, ruthlessly strips away what matters from what doesn’t, dulls the pain with pure adrenaline and primal instinct. Car crash victims talk of calmly strolling away from a burning wreckage. Survivors of dreadful accidents often chat lucidly away to the paramedics while lying in their own blood. When pushed to extremes, humans have a limitless capacity to endure, to carry on, to do the thing that is needed.
A lot of the speculation ahead of this game centred on how Ukraine’s footballers would cope with their first international fixture since the invasion of their country. Whether, for all the goodwill and generosity they have encountered, their lack of match practice would ultimately be the telling factor, that the emotional burden would take its toll in the pivotal moments.
