In a stadium littered with shrapnel, kids’ soccer takes on new meaning.

The reminders of the war are everywhere at the Champion Stadium in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv.

Shrapnel is scattered on the soccer pitch, and the shell fragments removed so far sit in a pile on a blue bench next to the backpacks of young soccer players at practice. A gaping hole remains under the bleachers, likely caused by a mortar shell. Two of the player’s fathers were shot and killed by Russian forces as they took over the town.

But even as the damage inside the stadium has yet to be cleared, the football season of the Olymp Irpin Football Club is in full swing. It is a powerful sign of resilience — and a necessary distraction — amid the aftershocks of war in Irpin, which was badly battered by fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces in March.

“We play football even in these circumstances because it helps our morale, and we try not to think about the war,” said the team’s 25-year-old coach, Daniil Kisel. Read more

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