(12 Jun 2012) Polish and Russian football fans were gathering on the streets of the Polish capital, Warsaw, on Tuesday before a Euro 2012 match overshadowed by a bitter history between their nations.
Though the mood on the streets was festive, Tuesday's highly charged match falls on Russia Day, a national holiday, and Russian fans plan to march from central Warsaw to the stadium - a move seen as provocative by many Poles.
The march will be heavily policed after Russia supporters were shown in an online video beating stewards at their team's first match, against the Czech Republic in Wroclaw on Friday night.
Many fans out early on Tuesday, though, said they hoped the game would take place in a spirit of fun.
But national pride on both sides will be at stake, and from newspaper headlines alone, you could be forgiven for thinking Poland's army was going into battle with Russia rather than its football team.
This week's Newsweek's Polish edition ran a front-page photo of Poland coach Franciszek Smuda saluting, in the uniform of Jozef Pilsudski - who was in command of Polish troops in Poland's victorious 1920 battle against the Bolshevik Army, known as the Miracle on the Vistula
And Polish papers went to town on Monday with references to the 1920 battle, known as the Miracle on the Vistula.
Poles still take pride in the victory, which was seen at the time as halting the spread of communism into Europe.
But many Polish fans believe that the media are wrong to play on nationalist tension before the match.
"I think it is more like (to do with) politics, and it is more like only (in the) newspapers. I think a lot of people in Poland and Russia are like friends, and they don't have something to fight for, it is just history," one Russian fan said.
"I think, I hope, that we and the Russian people think about the future and our future history. We would like to create our history together," said another.
Poland and Russia have a long history of troubled relations, including four decades of Soviet Union dominance under communism that was overthrown in Poland in 1989.
But on Tuesday Russian fans in Poland said they looked to the two countries' future, not their past.
"I think a lot of people in Poland and Russia are like friends, and they don't have something to fight for, it is just history," said one Russian fan.
Many, of course, remained focussed on the football.
About 10-thousand Russian fans have bought tickets for Tuesday's game. A win for the Russian team would put them through to the Euro 2012 quarterfinals with one qualifying match still to play.
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