In Europe’s eastern reaches there are a handful of hidden nations that, depending who you talk to, don’t really exist. There is Abkhazia, a tiny breakaway republic whose border sits just a short walk from the site of the media village for the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. There is South Ossetia, which claims independence from the republic of Georgia and there’s Nagorno-Karabakh, which proclaims itself separate from Azerbaijan, despite both having no official standing with the United Nations, no place in U.S. foreign policy, and a position of invisibility on internet maps. Typically, the only times you hear about such places are in times of political or actual conflict, or in quirky stories detailing how their ultra-rare postage stamps or bank notes have become collectors’ items among hobbyists. That changed this week. Because, among Europe’s small group of disputed enclaves there is Transnistria (otherwise known as Trans-Dniester), a sliver of land that’s geographically part of the former Soviet republic of Moldova, which is officially listed as Europe’s poorest country. And, in one of the greatest shocks in soccer history, Transnistria’s Sheriff Tiraspol somehow went to Real Madrid’s famed Estadio Santiago Bernabeu on Tuesday and stunned the hosts with an upset victory. No, you didn’t read that incorrectly. A team from a region that lacks official recognition and has limited basic infrastructure, who even total soccer nerds had barely heard of, visited the home of arguably the grandest club in world soccer, and strolled away with a 2-1 triumph. It wasn’t an exhibition game, it was Real’s first home fixture in the group stage for this season’s Champions League, a competition it has won 13 times, more than any other club. It wasn’t even a fluke, particularly. Despite odds of +2500, Sheriff held their own, weathered Madrid’s attacking storm, and clinched victory with a thunderous last-minute strike from Luxembourg midfielder Sebastien Thill. “It’s the best and most important goal of my career, that’s for sure,” Thill told reporters. “We’re so happy. We played a really good game. The side were so brave with how we played and luckily enough I was able to score a bit of a stunner.” There are so many parts to the Sheriff story that we can’t hope to cover them all but one of the wildest was that the hero was Thill, who has played most of his career in the tiny Luxembourg league yet dreamed big enough that he has a tattoo of himself starring in the Champions League on his leg. How’s that for speaking – or etching – something into reality? Sheriff’s win sparked delight among world soccer fans, who revel in the rare occasions when the biggest and baddest teams get upturned in a manner that defies disbelief. It also led to the inevitable question as to what, or who, are Sheriff Tiraspol, and how on earth was this even possible? The answer, in truth, is perhaps even more unusual than Tuesday’s result, which sees Sheriff situated ahead of both Real and Italy’s Inter Milan, plus Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk, atop Champions League Group D. Transnistria spans just 1,600 square miles and has less than half a million residents. Many of the buildings date back to the era of the Soviet Union. “Transnistria, in particular, is a haven for smugglers,” Eastern Europe political expert Thomas de Waal wrote on Carnegie Europe. Heavily dominant across all aspects of life in the area is a conglomerate of companies that also has local political power – the Sheriff group. Sheriff has a hand is everything from food production and gas to the financial sector, according to reports, and was founded by two former KGB agents. Those men, Viktor Gushan and Ilya Kazmaly, happened to love soccer and used some of Sheriff’s vast base of funds to try to make the local team a power. Sheriff Tiraspol plays in the Moldovan league, where most teams play on rented fields of poor condition. Sheriff’s stadium cost $200 million and is state of the art. “The Champions League debutants have played in Moldova’s football league since 1999,” wrote the BBC’s Robert O’Connor. “They are kings ruling over a peasant land. The Sheriff Company annual turnover is almost double the state budget, and it funds the club directly from its vast wealth reserves. The rest of Moldovan football is impoverished by comparison.” It creates an odd paradox. Soccer fans infuriated by the Super League proposals from earlier this year that sought to create a closed-shop of Europe’s richest teams celebrated the result over Madrid as proof that the little guy should always get a chance. The other side of the equation is that the money and recognition Sheriff gets from this season’s Champions League run will only enhance its complete stranglehold on the Moldovan league. It is not easy to attract leading players to Moldova, let alone a disputed territory within its official borders. Sheriff’s approach has been to sign promising players from African and South American countries and then sell them on to bigger teams at a profit. Until now, those attempts have been stymied because few Western European clubs have been prepared to fork out significant sums to buy players whose only proving ground was in Moldova. Tuesday night will shift all that. Even before the win in Spain, Sheriff had survived four rounds of Champions League qualifying just to make it to the group stage, and its players now have a sizable body of recognized work with which to prove their value. Thill, for example, is one of a number of Sheriff players who could be offloaded for serious money at the end of the season. That’s for a little later. With four group games remaining, Sheriff , incredibly, has a legitimate chance of qualifying for the knockout stage of the Champions League and staking a spot among the top 16 clubs on the continent. It has been quite a ride. A couple of months ago, when the team reached the group stage, many of the players had tears in their eyes. “I think this is not the last of our achievements,” Sheriff coach Yuri Vernydub said at the time. He wasn’t wrong, but even he likely couldn’t have predicted what happened on Tuesday, because no one could. Here’s what others have said … Gabriele Marcotti, ESPN: “Sometimes, two seemingly conflicting ideas can exist at once. Like how to feel about Moldova’s Sheriff Tiraspol, and whether it’s a fairy tale or a sad reflection of what it takes for a smaller, poorer nation to send a team to the Champions League.” Jonathan Wilson, Sports Illustrated: “Sheriff is not a wholesome case, but its victory is an example of why a closed Super League must never be allowed to come about.” Frank Castabeda, Sheriff Tiraspol captain: “We believed we could win. I spoke to my teammates as captain, motivating them, saying ‘why not dream?’” |
