Opening
Football in Kaliningrad in early May is always a struggle between the desire to believe in a miracle and the awareness that you are on an Island surrounded on all sides by reality. Francesc Artiga's Rubin did not come to play but to perform the role of an impeccably tuned metronome: a minimum of wasted movement, a maximum of cold calculation.
Fifteen thousand fans filled the stands expecting a celebration and got a masterclass in turning an opponent's 54% possession into a pointless geometry exercise.
