When Russia won the right to host this year’s World Cup in 2010, Tavria Simferopol were in Ukraine’s top division. The club’s “ultras” – hardcore fans – sang patriotic songs, and nursed fond memories of Tavria’s biggest triumph: when the club won independent Ukraine’s first Premier League title in 1992.
Eight years later, as the World Cup gets under way, there are two teams called Tavria: one still plays in Simferopol, the capital of Russian-annexed Crimea, and one plays across the newly drawn border in mainland Ukraine.
