The seats in the national colours of yellow and blue are broken or torn, the backrests are missing. They were destroyed by Russian grenades, according to the poster behind them on the Wittelsbacherplatz in Munich, where parts of a grandstand from a football stadium in Kharkiv have been rebuilt.
In front of the rows of battered chairs stands Andriy Shevchenko, once a world football star and now president of the Ukrainian Football Association.
His team is now starting the European Championship, he said before the match against Romania on Monday, but his thoughts are also “with the millions of soldiers” who are defending the homeland against the Russian attackers.
Shevchenko and his compatriots don’t just want to use the big stage of the European Championships to show that they can fight on the football field. They want to remind fans that the people of Ukraine are fighting for survival.
That is why the association brought the destroyed rows of seats from the Sonyachny Stadium, where the Dutch team once prepared for the European Football Championship in Ukraine in 2012 and later the national team for its matches.
Several hundred fans came, many dressed in the national colors or even in the national team’s jersey, to show solidarity with their soldiers, but also to wake up the people here that more help is needed. “We need heavy weapons,” Daria Gold, the organizer of the demonstration, shouted from the stage next to the stadium seats before Shevchenko’s appearance. This is the only way Ukraine can win the war against Russia.
The former soccer star also spoke about winning, saying that every victory the team wins gives people courage. Being part of the European Championship is “very important” for Ukraine. The destroyed small grandstand will be on display in Düsseldorf on Friday for Ukraine’s second game.