When Paris Saint-Germain drew with Bayern Munich in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final, they looked like a perfectly oiled machine.
PSG scored in the third minute of the away game and kept Bayern at bay until Harry Kane’s late equaliser, a goal that ultimately proved insufficient.
It was a pure example of a team functioning in harmony and proof that the natural tensions within a professional group don’t necessarily have to harm performance.
One player who was not on the pitch that night was defender Ilya Zabarnyi, who joined PSG last summer from Bournemouth after a very good spell in the Premier League.
The 23-year-old had played in PSG’s previous six Champions League matches (starting twice), but has not featured since the league stage.
Zabarnyi and PSG goalkeeper Matvey Safonov lined up on different teams during a training match ahead of the Champions League final against Arsenal on May 30.
With cameras everywhere today, it was noted that Zabarnyi and Safonov chose not to shake hands as the two halves of the team greeted each other at the training center.
There is no clarity on the reason for this refusal, but the most obvious assumption, and one that has been frequently made after the incident, is related to their nationalities.
Zabarnyi is from Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Safonov, 27, was born in the Russian city of Stavropol.
Although the two have played together in 13 games this season, it is not surprising that a Ukrainian and a Russian might choose not to shake hands in such a situation, just as it is not unusual for a football team to have internal friction that, at the crucial moment, does not necessarily affect what happens on the pitch.
