Under normal circumstances, I really couldn’t care less about football. For the sake of clarity, I’m talking about the type of football where the focus of attention is spherical rather than ovoid, but the same goes for the American variety. It wasn’t ever thus, though; from the age of ten into my mid-teens I really was super-super keen. When England manage to make it to the finals of a major tournament, my former enthusiasm briefly flickers into life before being snuffed out again as England exit, quite often ignominiously.
So, these are not normal circumstances, as the European Championships just kicked off (pardon the pun) on Friday. It just so happens that England have been drawn in the same group as Russia. As you can see from my Twitter feed, I was a little conflicted about this:
Turns out I needn’t have worried, at least as far what happened on the field was concerned. The two teams met yesterday; «никто не выиграл, никто проиграл», ‘nobody won, nobody lost’, which clearly means that, «матч закончился вничью», ‘the match ended in a draw’. «Ничья» = ‘a draw, a tie’, lit., ‘no one’s’. It was 1-1, incidentally.
The Russians have a charming, if slightly cheesy, expression for when this happens, «победила дружба», ‘friendship won’, or slightly more literally, ‘friendship triumphed’. (Победа, you may recall, is the Russian word for ‘victory’). As far as I’m aware, it’s mostly said somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
Depressingly, it would appear that there were quite a few who didn’t get the memo. A number of so-called ‘fans’ on both sides decided before and after the game that the whole thing was basically just a good excuse for a massive punch-up. I think I might just be going off football again…
