Ukraine forward Andriy Shevchenko celebrates after scoring his second goal against Sweden on Monday at the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv.
Sweden's Zlatan Ibrahimovic, left, and Ukraine's Yevhen Selin challenge for the ball in Monday's Euro 2012 match
KYIV, UKRAINE—Andriy Shevchenko, once the most feared striker in Europe, slipped from the minds of casual fans years ago when he returned to play in his home country.
On Monday night, at age 35, he reintroduced himself to the world by scoring two scorching headed goals in Ukraine’s 2-1 victory over Sweden. Can a man once sold for $50 million be considered an “improved” player?
Urged on by raucous local support, Ukraine was the latest team here to suggest that once you arrive on this stage, previous form and results recede in importance.
Right now, this tournament exists in a looking-glass world. The group leaders after the first slate of games are Russia, Denmark (tied with Germany), Croatia and Ukraine.
RECAP: Cathal Kelly’s game blog
KYIV—Svitlana, the woman working reception at the hotel I’m staying at here, stared at me for a second too long after I announced myself on Monday afternoon.
“Do you have passport?” she finally asked suspiciously.
Yes.
She adjusted her body, readying both of us for the real question.
“And do you have credit card?”
Yes.
She slumped a little. We’d overcome something big together, though I have no idea what.
Do visitors usually show up at your four-star hotel without passports and credit cards?
“You don’t know …” Svitlana growled, waving a hand in the air, “… with these football people.”
Welcome to Ukraine.
You have to grudgingly admire this country’s stubborn unwillingness to adapt themselves to the wants of thousands of guests after inviting them all here for Euro 2012.
The railways are a mess, as are the roads promised and left unfinished. Fans who travel to any city other than the capital are basically trapped there.
There aren’t enough hotels, and the ones that are here are pillaging like Vandals.
In Donetsk, the Sudbury of the Steppe, English supporters are sleeping in tents on the outskirts of town. That’s why you saw so many empty seats at England-France.
The mark-up on my room here was 350 per cent above the regular rate. It’s the sort of place that makes you want to lean a chair up against the door at night and sleep sitting in it.
My colleague at the Globe and Mail, John Doyle, got lucky. He landed a five-star overlooking Independence Square. The extra star must be because there’s a strip club in the basement.
It was a big day for Kyiv on Monday — their first game in the tournament, and featuring the national side. A morning flight into the city from Warsaw by Aerosvit, the Ukrainian carrier, was delayed three hours. When an angry Swedish fan demanded an explanation from a steward he was curtly told to “talk the president about it.” Whether of the country or the airline was not made clear.
What is becoming clear is that Ukraine chose to host this tournament for one reason — to please Ukraine.
Ukrainian leaders do not labour under the delusion that, after having got a good look at Lviv, Portuguese football fans are going to take a pass on the Algarve next summer and spend two weeks exploring that far-flung and inaccessible city’s many ancient cathedrals.
They aren’t romantic people, the ones who run this country. Their wax-statue of a president, Viktor Yanukovych, spent the year leading up to this thing consolidating his base by alienating every other leader in Europe. None of them will stand beside him here — in protest of the jailing of his predecessor. On Monday, it was left to UEFA president Michel Platini to sit in Yanukovych’s shadow during the match between Ukraine and Sweden. Platini looked every bit the spiffed-up subaltern he is.
The only path leading to the Olympic Stadium was mobbed with police — many of them in full battledress and wearing flak jackets. There are always coppers around these games. They tend to linger on the edges, in sight but out of mind.
Kyiv’s various armed enforcers were spread out across the wide, martial avenues Monday in long lines, so that visitors were forced to walk through them.
When I asked a local why, she said, “For some reason, Europeans are afraid to come here. This is to make them feel safe.”
It had rather the opposite effect.
As in every other country, the work of politicians should not be confused with the character of the people they represent. The average Ukrainian here has already shown more warmth and goodwill in two game days than the persnickety Swiss could manage in an entire Euro four years ago. What they are not keen to do is ingratiate themselves — which has become the barometer of success for this sort of thing.
What they appear to want to impress upon their guests is that they are a force to be reckoned with. They erected these magnificent arenas. That’s all anyone will see on TV, which is all most people care about these days anyway.
Sitting alongside us on Monday, a pair of journalists — one Spanish, one Ukrainian — got into a bitter argument over the organization here.
“It’s one thing to have stadiums, but it is not enough,” the Spaniard seethed.
He’s wrong. The measure of success depends largely on your goal. If all you wanted to do is hold a party at which you were the only happy guest, then building stadiums is more than enough.
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