It takes just ninety seconds for Romania to take the lead. Hungary defender Richárd Guzmics dawdles on the ball, slips and allows Ciprian Marica to race through. Marica stumbles when one on one with Ádám Bogdán in the Hungary goal, but somehow he manages to chip the ball into the bottom right-hand corner. The stadium explodes. A quiet middle-aged couple who have also been sitting in no-man’s-land go berserk, running towards the Hungarian fans, screaming as they flash their middle fingers. The Hungarians respond by ripping up their seats and throwing the metal barriers at us over the security guards’ heads. I move as far away from them as I can get.
Romania destroy their great rivals. Thirty minutes later Mihai Pintilii receives the ball on his right foot and curls a sensational shot into the top right-hand corner of the goal. Bogdán can do nothing about either goal. Wave after wave of Romanian attacks crash on to the Hungarian defence. With each feeble reply, the Hungarian fans become quieter and more menacing. I fear a Hungarian defeat. I am supposed to be on the same night train home as most of the away supporters, now stewing in a potent brew of defeat, humiliation and alcohol. At half-time the Romanian fans taunt the opposition from behind the safety of two fences and lines of riot police. The chants end when two flash grenades, somehow smuggled into the ground, are thrown over and explode by our feet. In the second half Bogdán makes two incredible saves to prevent utter humiliation. It could, and should, have been 6-0. With two minutes to go Romania score again, leaving the 40,000 Romanian fans ecstatic. Hungary have been abject, humiliated by their biggest rival. After the match the UDMR, the biggest political party that represents the interests of Romania’s Hungarian minority, lodge a complaint with FIFA over ‘anti-Hungarian’ sentiments and chanting during the games, as well as what they see as the police’s heavy-handed treatment of the away fans. The humiliation, though, does not end there. A few days later Romania contrive to lose to Turkey and Hungary smash Estonia, leaving second place in the group wide open again. Hungary need a good showing in Holland in their penultimate match for a chance to qualify. Holland destroy them 8-1. It is the joint biggest defeat in Hungary’s history. Within three games Hungary have gone from anticipating a potential trip to Brazil that would revive the memories of the Golden Generation of the 1950s to perhaps falling to its lowest ever ebb. To make matters worse, Romania will go on to finish second in the group and qualify for the World Cup play-offs.
Incredibly, there is no trouble in Bucharest that night. The Romanian supporters quickly hurry home, perhaps sensing that revenge might be on the cards, while the Hungarians are kept back in the stadium. A fleet of buses with barred windows waits for them under the stadium, ready to transport them all back to the railway station under police escort. The night train back to Budapest is full but peaceful. The Animal and his group of ultras from Steaua Bucharest were nowhere to be seen, before or after the game. The Romanian media later report that, far from confronting the Hungarian fans for their behaviour in Bucharest, they had found a group of Dinamo Bucharest ultras and fought with them instead. When the night train arrives back at Keleti station in Budapest the next afternoon, hundreds of black T-shirted Hungarians stumble drunkenly down the platform, waving their flags and singing their songs about Hungary’s glorious history, past the golden coloured engine painted with the smiling faces of the Magical Magyars.
13
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, SLOVAKIA
Žilina, Slovakia. September 2013.
On the pitch in front of me the Bosnia national football team is training in silence ahead of their next World Cup qualifier against Slovakia in twenty-four hours’ time. The match is taking place in Slovakia’s third largest city, close to the Low Tatras Mountains, the natural border with Poland. The cold wind and rain hint at snow and winter’s early arrival. Even in a wet and empty stadium the fear is palpable. Their coach, Safet Sušić, buried deep in a thermal jacket and hood, is being soaked by a nagging drizzle. The fifty or so Bosnian journalists watching in the stands shuffle their feet and chain-smoke to keep warm. But they, too, watch in silence. No one – not the players, the coach or the journalists – looks as if they want to be here.
Which is strange. Bosnia are currently top of Group G in World Cup qualification. It has been an incredible campaign so far. They have scored more goals than anyone else, smashing twenty-three in six qualifiers, at almost four a game. They are unbeaten and cruising towards their first World Cup finals since Bosnia became an independent nation. Bosnia’s first eleven would not be disgraced at any World Cup finals either. Up front they have Manchester City’s Edin Džeko and Stuttgart’s Vedad Ibišević to score the goals, Roma’s Miralem Pjanić provides the midfield guile and, in defence, captain Emir Spahić and goalkeeper Asmir Begović have raised a formidable barrier. For a coach whose attacking philosophy is merely to score one more goal than the opposition, no matter how many they concede, Safet Sušić’s Bosnia have been remarkably miserly, too, conceding just four times. Then, a few days earlier in the central Bosnian city of Zenica, in front of a home crowd desperate for The Dragons to plant one foot in Brazil, they conspired to lose 1-0 to Slovakia. Greece, who have stuck to them like glue, moved level on points. The Greeks knew what every team in Europe has come to suspect: that against the Bosnians their chance will come. It always does. The fear has set in. Every Bosnian in the Štadion pod Dubňom – not to mention the millions spread across the world – have good reason to be unhappy. History is beginning to repeat itself. Bosnia are about to choke.
Bosnia have been this close to qualifying for a major tournament twice before. There was little they could do in coming second to Spain in their qualification group for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Spain had won all ten of their matches, after all. It was also bad luck to draw Portugal in the play-offs. They lost both legs 1-0. Worse still, they again drew Portugal in the play-offs for the 2012 European Championships two years later. This time the result was more emphatic – 6-2 over both matches – but it was the final group game against France that had made Bosnians question whether they would ever see their team at a major finals. At the Stade de France in Paris, Bosnia took an early lead through a brilliant curling right-foot shot by Edin Džeko. France only led the group by a point before the game, meaning Džeko’s goal would have put Bosnia through to their first major finals. But a late penalty by Samir Nasri took France to the finals instead and consigned Bosnia to their fruitless play-off against Portugal. Goalkeeper Asmir Begović played that day after coming on as a half-time substitute. ‘We’ve been on such a journey to qualify for these tournaments and we’ve always fallen short,’ he says, now sitting on the second floor of the team hotel after training. ‘It’s almost the story of the country. No matter what the sport, they always fall at the last hurdle.’
Downstairs the bar is full of Bosnia fans drunkenly singing sad old songs at the top of their voices. Žilina is full. It is impossible to get a room in the city as almost every ticket had been bought by travelling Bosnia fans. The stadium can hold 11,000 and it is thought at least 8,000 will be Bosnian. It has been the same at every away match in qualification. ‘The love people have for their country is amazing,’ Begović says. The Bosnian war has much to do with the attendance. Back in 1992 Bosnia declared independence. It was always a multi-ethnic nation within the Yugoslav republic; half-Bosnian Muslim and the rest largely Serb and Croat. But during the subsequent war it tore itself apart from the inside as communities turned on each other. As many as 100,000 people died in two and a half years, leaving behind familiar names for ever associated with bloodshed. There was, of course, the siege of Sarajevo, the longest in modern European warfare, and the massacre of Srebrenica, where 8,000 Bosnian men, from boys to pensioners, were murdered by a Serb militia. The country’s name is synonymous with tragedy and every player and every fan has their story. Begović left his town in eastern Bosnia, where the worst massacres took place, when he was four years old. ‘My parents and grandparents who had built a life in Bosnia had lost everything,
’ he says of that time. His family ended up in Germany and then in Canada. ‘We lived in a Bosnian way wherever we lived, whether that was Germany or Canada,’ he says. He speaks now in a broad North American accent. ‘We took everyone’s culture on board but we were always Bosnian.’ Begović got out but Džeko stayed, in Sarajevo. ‘I was six when the war started,’ he told football writer Jonathan Wilson in 2012. ‘It was terrible. My house was destroyed so we went to live with my grandparents. The whole family was there, maybe fifteen people, all staying in an apartment about thirty-five metres square. It was very hard. We were stressed every day in case somebody we knew died.’
When the war finished, football resumed, but only after the pitch of the city’s biggest club, Željezničar Sarajevo, the club Džeko would go on to play for, was cleared of mines. ‘When the war finished,’ Džeko believed, ‘I was much stronger, mentally.’ Which is why Begović believes the national team is so important to Bosnians. Other than the legitimacy that a World Cup finals infers – former Croatian president Franco Tudjman told then Croatia captain Igor Štimac that the national team had done more for the state than any single politician – the Dragons have become a rallying point for the refugees, and the sons and daughters of refugees, displaced by the war. War destroyed Bosnia but it also spread Bosnians far and wide. ‘The war took people all over Europe, all over the world,’ Begović says. ‘When we have this game it brings people together and they travel from far away to support us. It gives us an extra edge and a push. Every game this qualifying we’ve pretty much been playing at home, even when we’re away.’ The duel immigrant identity had caused a dilemma for Begović. Before Bosnia he had previously represented Canada’s Under 20s. In Canada Begović’s ‘defection’ didn’t go down well. ‘I had to get on with my life as it was,’ he recalls of his decision to represent Canada. ‘When the opportunity came it was a difficult decision. But I never had family getting to watch games. My family comes to every Bosnia game home and away. Uncles, aunties; that’s where your identity is and that’s what makes you feel proud to represent your family and represent your country. It does mean a little more. I didn’t take playing for Canada for granted but it was a stronger pull to play for Bosnia.’ Bosnia now had a choice. If the team lost again it was to be the play-offs again. Safet Sušić – himself considered both the greatest Bosnian and the greatest Paris Saint-Germain player of all time, who represented Yugoslavia at the 1982 and 1990 World Cup finals – had been in charge of that game at the Stade de France. It’s unlikely he’ll survive another near miss. ‘We’ve never qualified for a major tournament before so we don’t know how we do it, until we do it,’ Begović admits. ‘Once we get there we’ll know how we’ll do it and do it again.’
With a population of under four million, Bosnia is punching above its weight even getting this far. Eighteen years ago Bosnia didn’t even have a team, as such. The Dragons played their first official friendly against Albania in Tirana. The team originally only had eight players and had to buy their own kit from a sports shop in Zagreb. The match took place in 1995, just nine days after the signing of the Dayton Agreement that ended the war. ‘I remember that I gathered my assistants and we decided that, if we couldn’t find more players, we should play,’ Bosnia’s first coach Fuad Muzurović told football writer Saša Ibrulj of that game. ‘We just wanted to have a national team, no matter the squad, no matter the performance, no matter the result.’ Bosnia lost 2-0. Now, eighteen years later, it is on the brink of Brazil 2014. ‘Everyone lives in the past and with what happened twenty years ago,’ says Begović before he leaves the noise of the lobby and the fans, still singing their sad old songs by the bar. ‘But if we accomplish something, it is to say: “It’s a new country, it’s a new way and a new future.”’
**
On a stage at the edge of Andrej Hlinka Square in Žilina’s historic old centre, a Bosnian turbo folk band is scaling a dizzying crescendo. Both here and the nearby Mariánske town squares are covered in the yellow and blue of the Bosnian flag. A huge version is unfolded on the floor, covering a third of the area. Almost every Bosnian tribe is represented here. Second-generation teenage girls from Sweden; covered, devout women from Sarajevo; drunken young boys who have driven twenty hours from Tuşla; a smart group of Americans who are staying at the best hotel in town; a young family from Germany. ‘There’s only one word: love. We love our Bosnia,’ shouts Fahrudin, a middle-aged supporter sitting at a bar on the square. He has a grey beard and a red fez on his head, and is furtively taking swigs from a bottle of Bosnian wine he’s hidden under his table. Like his friend Jad he fled to London during the war and stayed, picking up a slight English inflection along the way. ‘It will be the first time we have qualified for the World Cup since the war has ended, since we became independent,’ explains Jad. ‘I came to London in 1992 and still live there. But I love Bosnia. Never forget where you come from. Since the war there are so many people across the world. There will be people here from USA, Canada. Asmir Begović grew up in Canada. Ibišević grew up in America. Most of our players did.’ What will it mean, World Cup qualification, for such a new country, I ask. ‘Look at the expectations of people, there are seven thousand here,’ he replies. ‘Some people here will probably earn £350 a month in Bosnia. They will put most of their monthly budget into this game. They killed our people for so long and we want to show them what we are made of.’ Fahrudin is less happy. ‘We are not a new country, mate. We are not a new country,’ he puffs angrily, getting red in the cheeks as he shakes his head. ‘We are a very, very old country. We are the oldest country in the Balkans. NEVER SAY THAT AGAIN,’ he shouts. ‘Never say that again. We are older than Serbia and Croatia.’ He is the only Bosnian I had seen get remotely angry all day. ‘We love our country,’ he apologises, holding me by the shoulder in an iron grip. ‘We will beat them tonight 2-0. We are very proud.’
As planned, the Štadión pod Dubňom is full of Bosnian supporters. A small square of Slovaks in white shirts fills a corner of the stadium, but they can’t be heard. The Bosnian team’s hotel has been full of hundreds of Bosnia fans waiting to see the players leave for the game. Inside a dozen fans are watching another football match on the television in the bar. In Tashkent, Uzbekistan are playing Jordan in the final Asian qualification play-off. The two teams finished third in their respective groups. Uzbekistan had been particularly unlucky, having led the group until being overtaken by Iran and South Korea after the final match. For Jordan it was the closest the tiny Middle Eastern kingdom had ever got to the World Cup finals. The first game in Amman had ended 1-1, as had the game the Bosnian fans were watching. The winner, who would then contest a final intercontinental play-off with South America’s fifth-placed team, would have to be decided by penalties. Uzbekistan missed an early one. The Jordanian player ran up to take his kick and then ... nothing. The screen went dead. Every screen in the world went dead. The global feed had somehow been cut. No one outside the stadium in Tashkent would see what happened in that penalty shoot-out. It later emerged that Jordan had won through, 9-8, although no one believed it.
The sound in the stadium is deafening as the teams come out for the national anthems. Slovakia’s is warmly applauded when it is played, a gesture of gratitude from the fans who have invaded their city. Bosnia unleash everything they have at Slovakia, who will still have a mathematical chance of qualifying if they win here and Latvia hold Greece to a draw. But they are wasteful in front of goal. Slovakia have already had a goal disallowed for a dubious offside when they go in front. Napoli’s Marek Hamšik scores, firing a brilliant shot across Begović into the bottom right-hand corner. The crowd are stunned. It looks like Bosnia are about to choke again.
In the second half the Dragons do what Sušić has taught them to do best. They attack, but can’t break down the Slovakians. Then, with twenty minutes to go, Ermin Bičakčič pokes the ball in from close range to bring the house down. But it won’t be enough. Greece are a machine, and they’re beating Latvia 1
-0. Eight minutes later Izet Hajrović, a Swiss-born Bosnian who had once played for Switzerland, is brought on. His very first touch is to blast the ball with his left foot from thirty yards into the top right-hand corner of the goal. Slovakia have been eliminated and Bosnia have done it. They have won, but, more importantly, they have come back and won. After the referee blows the final whistle the players mob coach Safet Sušić as the crowd celebrates, a hex seemingly lifted from the country’s shoulders.
**
Later that same night, across the Atlantic Ocean at the Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, a thousand fans are sitting in the stands watching a game on the big screen. Honduras are playing Panama 3,000 kilometres away in Tegucigalpa, but these aren’t exiles or second-generation descendants of the Panamanian or Honduran diaspora eager for a taste of home. They are almost all wearing the Stars and Stripes, having just watched the US beat arch-rivals Mexico 2-0. It was the fourth time they had beaten Mexico dos a cero in the same stadium and the victory put the US on the brink of qualifying for their seventh World Cup finals in a row. But they needed a draw in Tegucigalpa to make it happen. I had seen the US begin its campaign against Antigua and Barbuda in Florida, when they squeaked through 3-1. They had easily qualified for the Hexagonal, a final group stage of six teams. The top three qualified automatically for Brazil 2014 while the fourth-placed team would play the winner of qualification from FIFA’s smallest confederation, Oceania. That had long been known to be New Zealand. The US and Mexico were clear favourites, but CONCACAF qualification has been a popular route for the underdog. Haiti qualified for the 1974 finals, Jamaica in 1998 and Trinidad and Tobago, the smallest nation ever to qualify, in 2006. Jamaica had made it to the 2014 Hexagonal, along with Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica.
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