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| Selfie, today (RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) |
Coincidentally, I've lately been sporting my "Sheriff" ball cap. I wrote about Transnistria after my visit there, and to Sheriff's 12,000-seat stadium in Tiraspol, two years ago: "Breakaway state of Transnistria might model new Russian sphere of influence" (Dec. 16, 2019).
It's interesting to see how media outlets describe Sheriff's geographic home. Most I've seen say "Moldova," which, I guess, is what you find if you look at a political map. Wikipedia describes Tiraspol as "the capital of Transnistria, a breakaway state in Moldova." Only in an Al Jazeera main headline did I see exclusive mention of Transnistria. The subhede then started, "Football club from a pro-Russian separatist enclave in Moldova."
After I crossed into Transnistria and showed my papers to the heavily armed border guards to get my 24-hour visa in a flurry of stamps, I didn't feel like I was still in Moldova.
Most media outlets have not picked up the political thread on the upset story. In one exception, Sheriff's road to Champions League glory is well contextualized by Gab Marcotti for ESPN FC. He observed that none of the Sheriff players are Moldovan or Transnistrian—but before one "get[s] high and mighty about national identity, please consider that at the final whistle, there were exactly zero Spaniards on the pitch."
Is the Sheriff-over-Real-Madrid story "a 'fairy tale' or a sad reflection"? Marcotti wondered. On the one hand, there is the peculiar joy of football as sometimes, or seeming, social leveler:
Let it be a reminder that ordinary players, on an ordinary Tuesday night, can walk into the temple of football and knock it down, like Samson back in the day. That's part of the appeal of this sport. It's low-scoring, it's mano-a-mano, and the gap between superstars and extras may be huge over time, but on any given day, it can be tiny and anything can happen.
Marcotti drew on a Twitter thread from near-Tiraspol-born, ethnically Russian, now Baltimore, Md.-based sportswriter Slava Malamud to illustrate the other hand:
[Sheriff] have been Moldovan champions in 19 of the past 21 years, they have the country's only modern stadium and they're bankrolled by the Sheriff corporation, a conglomerate that includes Transnistria's only supermarket chain, gas station chain, telephone network, TV channels, publishing house and distillery. The owners have close ties to the local government, which, in turn, is funded and protected by Russia. This isn't just a company team; it's a company town in the company enclave of Transnistria, and you can't shake the feeling that this is what it takes for "fairy tales" like this to take place in the modern game.
Football is metaphor. What happens on the pitch, especially when recounted by capable journalists, is contradiction, because contradiction is football, and football is life. Sheriff is fairy tale and sad reflection. In the same way that pride and frustration are fast friends.
Undefeated in the group stage, Sheriff now leads UEFA Champions League Group D with wins over Real Madrid and Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk. Sheriff will face Inter Milan, in Milan, on October 19, again putting the fairy tale to the test.
(Below, BT Sport tweet from Sheriff's August win over Dinamo Zagreb to reach the Champions League (retweeted by Malamud)).
History is made! 🇲🇩
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) August 25, 2021
Sheriff Tiraspol become the first Moldovan side to EVER qualify for the Champions League group stage! 👏#UCL pic.twitter.com/JxkJtOKYOH
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