Blackburn defender Zurab Khizanishvili has spoken of his horror at discovering that friends back home in Georgia had been wounded in the conflict with Russia.
The full-back is in Swansea with the Georgia squad preparing for what will be an emotional friendly with Wales at the Liberty Stadium on Wednesday.
But for Khizanishvili, the dark shadow that has descended on his homeland pushes football into the background.
He said: "We will play the match as a message to the world, that Georgia is capable of doing so.
"More than 2,000 soldiers have been killed, plus people in the villages, maybe 5,000 in all. It is terrible.
"But playing this game is sending out a message to the world, we are a small country but we can show how big we are.
"The Russians have killed too many children, dropping bombs on houses that have families in them. They do not care where they put their bomb, it is crazy what has happened."
Khizanishvili added: "It is hard for us to play, to think about football considering what is happening in Georgia. But maybe things are starting to get better and within a few days the Russians will have left.
"My family is in Tbilisi, and they are OK, but at the beginning it was very hard to find out anything, all the phone lines and mobiles were stopped.
"But I do know that some of my friends, young boys who are in the army, are still in hospital after being wounded.
"They were fighting against Russia, two of my best friends, trying to protect Georgia but it was too much for them.
"It all happened so quickly, a couple of days beforehand I was talking to a friend who was off to compete in the Olympics, and then suddenly there is a war."
He added: "There were no messages, it suddenly started. It was frightening for everyone.
"Of course not for me because I live in Manchester, but I know that many of the squad had to go to Baku in Azerbaijan to get their visas.
"They have tried everything to play this game, we need to play to show that we are a country and we can be proud."
Khizanishvili revealed that fellow players who are with clubs in Russia had been prevented from travelling to Wales.
"The Russians have stopped several of our players who are in their league from coming to Wales. It has been impossible for several of them to get visas, their passports are with the Russians and they could not get them.
"We have not even been able to get visas for some of our players who are in the German league.
"I cannot feel worse than the players who are in Georgia. But there was no panic there, even if there has been some bad things going on which has not been shown on TV.
"We do not hate the Russians, the relationship has been getting better since we split and became independent in 1989. I was just seven then and there was a bad war, big problems.
"But it had been getting better. Maybe the politicians have argued, but that is just politics. There has been nothing like that between the people.
"It is hard for us, but we have to play the game. We cannot allow ourselves to feel that because of what is happening that we are not ready for the game, we have to play.
"The manager has asked us if we are ready, because he needs to know. But we have all said we will play, we want to send a message to Russia that we can do this.
"We also want to show our people and our supporters who will be in the stadium.
"We have a new manager, this is Hector Cuper's first game, so we have to work together and for two hours tomorrow we must forget the war and play for our country."
