Some cutting edge Russian humour from the folks manning the Zenit St. Petersburg twitter account as they digested the news that they'd drawn Dundalk in the group phase of the Europa League.
The tweet was swiftly deleted although not so swiftly that it hadn't racked up 90+ retweets. Our 'LOI correspondent' John Dodge caught the tweet in time and has now preserved it forever through the medium of the screengrab.
Zenit St Petersburg tweeted this (and deleted it) in reply to their Dundalk draw pic.twitter.com/iEM6UGoa5l
— Dodge (@seidodge) August 26, 2016
This is the GIF they tweeted ?pic.twitter.com/BG3inDeFUD
— Dodge (@seidodge) August 26, 2016
As a nation, Russia has dived down some pretty un-PC alleyways under their current administration. This tweet is the least among their crimes. No one is suggesting that UEFA's hate crime regulations need to be tightened as a result.
It is, of course, a rather mid-twentieth century portrait of the Irish. But then even the most sophisticated of Russians were quite never up-to-speed on events here. When he visited in 1989, Gorbachev asked Haughey is the Queen was still our Head of State, an exchange which resulted in Haughey wearing a sourpuss for the rest of the afternoon.
Still, motivation and all that.
