When Croatia inched towards a possible place in the World Cup final, firecrackers whizzed and banged around Zagreb as residents rejoiced.
However, for South African cricketer and English teacher Kobus Olivier, the sounds brought back the terrible trauma of hunkering down with his dogs in his flat in Kyiv as Russia advanced on Ukraine from February.
"Jirre, for the first time, I understood that I have got a lot of shock that I haven't dealt with," Olivier told News24 by phone on Wednesday.