Hampden Park Is the Place of Mixed Emotions as Ukraine Keeps FIFA World Cup Dream Hope Alive With Scotland Win

• Scotland and Ukraine's 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying play-off tie at Hampden Park in Glasgow was bound to be an emotional encounter whatever the outcome
• The Ukrainians emerged as deserved 3-1 victors over their Scottish hosts, setting up a play-off final against Wales on Sunday
• The result and the surrounding mood of the match sent social media into overdrive of sympathy, commiserations and jubilation

Ukraine's 3-1 victory over Scotland in a 2022 FIFA World Cup play-off semifinal sparked social media into a frenzy.

Goals from Andriy Yarmolenko, Roman Yaremchuk and Artem Dovbyk were enough to render Callum McGregor's goal irrelevant in what was a bouncing Hampden Park in Scotland's capital city of Glasgow. The result ensured that the Ukrainians and Wales will duke it for a place in Qatar this Sunday in Cardiff.

The ongoing strife of the Ukrainians as a result of Russia's invasion of the country was always going to be the main backdrop of the encounter, but the visitors appeared to have used this adversity to drive them to what turned out to be an unexpectedly comfortable victory against a Scottish side renowned for its formidable record playing at home.

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For good measure, Scotland were unbeaten in 12 home games at Hampden Park coming into this match (W8 D4); with Ukraine having ended Scotland’s longest home unbeaten run since May 1978 (16 games).

While the circumstances of the country are very much grim, the watching world regarded the popular victory as something of a fairytale one.

World Cup qualifiers: Ukraine beat Scotland to set up crunch tie against Wales

Ukraine beat Scotland 3-1 at the Hampden Park in Glasgow to proceed to the next and final round of the World Cup qualifiers.

As reported on Sports Brief, it was an emotional night for Ukraine who are struggling with political issues and war back in their home country. The game started in an ill-tempered fashion with centre referee Daniel Makkelie issuing two yellow cards in the first ten minutes.

The Oleksandr Petkov coached side will now head to Cardiff on Sunday to make another attempt to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 2006.