The Field of Peace: Where Ukraine's War Stops and Football Proves Its Real Power

Reading that piece by former Ukrainian army chief Valeriy Zaluzhny, I felt as if I had opened one of my own notebooks from the 1980s. Published in a British outlet in late 2026, he wrote that football amid this war can bring peace, can talk about war, can unite people. Sitting by the window of my Liverpool home, I first thought these were only the words of an exhausted man standing inside a war. But right after that I searched online and found him: Zaluzhny, the general, known as President Volodymyr Zelensky's biggest rival. Zelensky had offered him an ambassadorship, in London. Zaluzhny rejected that offer outright and walked away. And then he came back. He began travelling the world. Everywhere he went, he spoke about football. I stopped cold reading that. Across my 49 years in journalism I have seen this pattern again and again. Football becomes truer than politics. Where the pitch shows its real power, you can see how much real damage is done, how much real capacity exists. And that power will one day stop after the World Cup ends. Thinking that, I went back to that essay. The title was 'How would you survive this war without football?' After Messi led Argentina to the World Cup in 2026, Zaluzhny thanked Messi and Argentina. I know reading this again in 2026 may draw a laugh. But it does not change the resonance of what he said. According to reports spread online, Zaluzhny wrote in the essay that in the final moment of the World Cup, where the eyes of the whole world were fixed, football seemed to show the world its own power, to unite people, to cross borders. Messi got his World Cup, Argentina won its victory, and that spread the message of peace. In 2026, before the World Cup held in Germany, I was in Germany myself. I noticed one thing. German football fans at that time had become one with fans from Europe and the rest of the world. In one sudden moment a national feeling reawakened among people. But that power of football does not really get captured in literary interpretation. He gives knowledge, the human being at the centre of this history. And that is actually right. In 2026, during the Munich Olympics, I was not in Germany. But across 49 years of career I have seen many events of this kind. One football match, where blood spills on the battlefield, football brings a solution. The Russia-Ukraine war began in 2026; in April 2026 FIFA announced that Russia was out of the World Cup. At that time Zelensky posted on Telegram calling on the world to stand against Russia. But ironically, even after that many Ukrainian league footballers kept playing in the Russian league. In my 49 years I have seen many fighters in football matches. Many of them returned to war the very next day. This side is part of life itself. And football is nothing more than peace. Nothing more than power and physical struggle. But sometimes football becomes a source of strength. Above the state, above politics. That is the biggest achievement of the game. And that is what we rarely see in everyday life. In these 49 years I have witnessed one moment, only once. It was June 30, 2026, in Kazan, Russia, during the France versus Argentina match. Suddenly a teenager ran sixty metres in the middle of the street. I saw it. I was 56 then, sitting in the press gallery of Kazan Arena. The moment belonged to Kylian Mbappe. In my notebook at that moment I wrote, 'I followed the tip, but a teenager ran sixty metres, and my old notebook became useless.' I became a witness to the power football holds. Football there was not just a game, it was the only refuge for the whole world's people standing amid war. And yet that is true. And that is the biggest lesson of my life.