Real Madrid suffered one of the biggest Champions League upsets in recent memory Tuesday, when the Spanish power fell at home to Sheriff Tiraspol, a first-time participant in the tournament representing a nation that, in some ways, does not even exist.
Tiraspol is the principal city of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, also known as Transnistria or Trans-Dniester, a breakaway region that separated itself from Moldova just as that country was declaring its independence amid the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Since then, Transnistria has been granted a large degree of autonomy from Moldova and uses its own currency, but it is not officially recognized by any member of the United Nations.