The Ukrainian players shared great and somewhat ambivalent feelings with their supporters in the stands at Glasgow's Hampden Park on Wednesday evening.

Some people cheered, but there were also tears, many people wrapped their bodies in blue and yellow flags after Ukraine's 3-1 victory in Scotland, as if the fabric offered them warmth and protection.

It really wasn't pure joy.

The whole conflict between the happiness of an important victory and the gloom of his own fate could be seen in the words that Oleksander Petrakov chose after the game.

"We played for those who fight in the trenches, who fight with their last drop of blood.

We also play for people at home who suffer every day," said the Ukraine national team coach.

“This was a small step towards our big goal.

We want to make Ukrainians proud.

You have to consider what they are going through;

People are killed, women are gang raped.”

An evening of joy for Ukraine

The side brought joy to millions of their countrymen in Glasgow, but they are also on a deeply distressing mission.

The players see themselves as part of the liberation project that the whole country has been involved in since the Russian invasion and which they would very much like to continue next November and December at the World Cup in Qatar.

For that to happen, after this semi-final, the Ukrainians still have to win the play-off final in Cardiff against Wales next Sunday, which will once again be charged with all those emotions and thoughts that go far beyond sport.

And so, after this success, many felt a feeling of emptiness.

Coach Petrakow was so upset that he didn't even bother trying to find the right words to discuss his team's footballing performance.

"I'm empty about the analysis," he explained.

He had already made a similar statement after a test match in Mönchengladbach, the importance of the big thing apparently overshadows any specialist debate.

The football his team played in Glasgow was impressive.

Scotland are as strong as they have been in a long time, last year's EURO being the first major tournament they qualified for this millennium and they are led by superb individual players like Liverpool FC's Andrew Robertson.

Now they really wanted to take part in a World Cup for the first time since 1998, but had no chance.

“We have improved a lot.

I'm sad for the players," said coach Steve Clarke, but also knowing that almost the whole world begrudges the Ukrainians this victory, conceded: "The best team won the game."

Apart from the insecure goalkeeper Georgi Buschtschan, who favored the interim 1:2 with his mistakes and thus initiated an exciting final phase, the Ukrainians played excellently.

They looked physically fit, managed the pace well and harmonized as a team, although the six players from Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk have only played friendlies since the outbreak of war.

They still remember the intensity of top international duels, but they didn't notice it.

Former Dortmund attacker Andriy Yarmolenko scored a nice goal early on to make it 0-1 (33'), Roman Yaremchuk headed the 0-2 (49') at the beginning of the second half and there were a number of other opportunities.

After the 1:2 (Callum Mc Gregor, (80th) it got exciting for a moment,

Perhaps they were carried away by the great emotions with which this game was charged.

Even before the game, Oleksandr Zinchenko, the star of Manchester City, said in tears at a press conference: "Every Ukrainian only wants one thing: to end this war.

I've talked to people from all over the world, from different countries.

I also spoke to Ukrainian children who just don't understand what's happening in Ukraine.

All they want is for the war to stop, and they only have one dream: to end the war.” Such moments touch everyone who listens, and they are explicitly desired.

This is one of the reasons why participation in the World Cup would be of great value for the Ukrainians.

The background to this is the Ukrainians' efforts, which are visible in many parts of the world public, to ensure that this war remains present in the minds and moves many people until peace reigns again.

It would be bad for the invaded country if a process of getting used to it started, in the course of which other issues came to the fore.

Participation in the World Cup in autumn could make a decisive contribution to fulfilling this wish for permanent visibility of the situation in Ukraine.

This task is an integral part of the project the footballers are working on these days.

And that's why they see this win only as an intermediate step, which according to Zinchenko "means nothing" unless the team also wins against Wales and makes the leap to Qatar.

His preview of the duel with the team around superstar Gareth Bale is correspondingly clear: "It will no longer be about condition and tactics - it will be a game of survival."