Euro 2024 fuels dreams of Ukrainian boy who escaped horror by returning home

STUTTGART, Germany — Kyryl Vidkovskyi is like any other kid obsessed with soccer. He idolizes Lionel Messi and spends every free minute kicking a ball, training with his friends and dreaming of becoming a footballer. These dreams kept Kyryl going when he spent 27 days in the basement of his school in Yahidne, Ukraine, after the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Forced from his home and into the school basement by Russian troops, Kyryl, just 10 at the time, was one of more than 300 people from his village who endured hell for nearly a month. Some villagers died – there was no electricity or running water, food consisted of groceries snatched from cupboards before being chased from their homes – and survival was a daily, hourly challenge.

Kyryl was always dreaming about football. He scratched football drawings on the walls – stick figures, on a football field. “You had to distract yourself somehow,” Kyryl told ESPN. “I found a piece of coal on the floor and started drawing on the walls. Just football players on a field. I love football and I wanted to play, but I couldn’t. Maybe I didn’t understand why, but I couldn’t play.”

“The Russians said the people captured in the school couldn’t go to the bathroom for two or three days. The only water we had was mixed with sand. It was horrible.”

Two years later, Kyryl, now 13 years old, and his mother Kseniia and his father Kostya, started a new life in Germany, in the town of Bielefeld, near Dortmund. They are among 300 Ukrainians – wounded soldiers, families of those killed in action and people who endured the conflict in the occupied regions – who have been invited to Euro 2024 to attend Ukraine’s matches and meet members of the team. Serhiy Rebrov. The Ukrainian Federation arranged tickets and transportation for the family to attend Wednesday’s match against Belgium in Stuttgart.

“Football is a sport that brings people together. It heals and provides crucial positive emotions, especially valuable for Ukrainians in times of war,” said Andriy Shevchenko, president of the Football Federation of Ukraine and former AC Milan icon, about the family’s invitation to attend the match. “We believe that football can have a positive impact on the rehabilitation of soldiers. The Football Federation of Ukraine has the potential to establish a support system for our veterans and war-affected Ukrainians. Therefore, this collaboration marks another important step towards achieving this goal. »

Throughout their Euro 2024 campaign, Ukrainian players have repeatedly expressed their determination to boost the morale of their troops and the Ukrainian people who continue to suffer the effects of war.

Kyryl’s story is one of the most poignant. As we speak, alongside his mother and father at the Ukrainian team hotel in Stuttgart, Kyryl waits for a photo with his hero, Chelsea striker Mykhailo Mudryk, as the great Shevchenko walks by .

Kyryl is in town to watch Ukraine’s decisive match against Belgium in Group E. He also took part in Ukraine’s 2-1 victory against Slovakia in Dusseldorf. Those dreams in Yahidne’s basement are coming true, but there’s no doubt he and his family would rather stay home, and none of that ever happened.

“When the Russians came, we were all taken to school. The whole village,” Kyryl’s father Kostya told ESPN. “We lived underground and it was really cold. It was February, really really cold, and there were over 360 people in there. It was like a crazy fantasy.

“Twelve people died,” Kostya continued. “Because of the lack of air, the lack of food. People were losing their minds. We were sitting, we couldn’t lie down. All we could do was sit and hear the fighting. Some of the rockets also destroyed the school. There was no electricity, no communication with the outside world. We were in captivity and the only toilet was a bucket in the corner of the room. It was not a place for people to live, not a place for a child. »

Today, Kyryl, her mother and father are wearing their Ukrainian shirts. The experience of participating in the tournament is clearly a huge positive for Kyryl.

“Feeling the whole atmosphere, with all the fans, it’s so nice,” he said. “We see people from all over Europe, so it’s great. The win against Slovakia was incredible.”

Germany has offered refuge to more than a million Ukrainian refugees since the start of the conflict in February 2022, more than any other country. Kyryl and his family are enjoying their new life and he found a local soccer team to play with. “Messi is my favorite player, but I am a full-back,” he said. “I also like to attack. Our team won a trophy this year, so that was good for me.”

Kostya proudly shows a photo of her son with his new team, but Kseniia, in tears, says there have been challenges and difficulties adapting to life outside Ukraine.

“When we moved here, I was anxious and angry,” she said. “In Ukraine, Kyryl played football every day, weekends and evenings, rain or shine. Football was his whole life. But when we moved here, it was different. Everything I what I wanted for Kyryl was to play football, I was afraid we could do it. “I didn’t find a team, but we are now finding a team that is half an hour from us. He trains two days a week, it was seven days, but here it’s different.

Life is not normal for Kyryl and her family, not the “old” normal anyway. But being at Euro 2024, waiting for photos with his favorite players, watching Ukraine play and joining the crowd singing “Sweet Caroline” is a small but pleasant distraction from what he has endured.

He dreamed of football in the most difficult times and the game gave him something back.