FC Sheriff: Champions League upstarts from an unrecognised land

Last night FC Sheriff, the Moldovan club from Russia-backed Transnistria, shocked Real Madrid to top their Champions League group. Is this a football fairytale or something more complicated? Nick Ames was at their group opener with Shakhtar Donetsk

Real Madrid's French forward Karim Benzema looks at the celebration of Sheriff's Brazilian midfielder Bruno Felipe Souza da Silva (R) the UEFA Champions League first round group D footbal match between Real Madrid and Sheriff Tiraspol at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, on September 28, 2021.  Photo by JAVIER SORIANO/AFP via Getty Images)

The strains of one anthem give way to a hybrid version of another. A meaningful show of applause for the Champions League music is dying down when, as FC Sheriff Tiraspol prepare for kick-off, the ultras in sector 13 erupt into verse. They do it before every game but rarely in numbers like these, nor in comparable volume: the lyrics have been tweaked but the melody is unmistakably that of the old Soviet national song, nowadays used by Russia. 

The choir then segue into their adaptation of another rousing tune from the USSR era, the “Moscow in May” army march. Moscow is 700 miles and two borders away but in the capital of Transnistria, whose biggest bookshop offers framed posters of the local president Vadim Krasnoselsky alongside images of Vladimir Putin and Joseph Stalin for about £1 each, no such flourishes feel out of place.