Life may be rough and tough and the recent devastating floods may have added to its misery but football is turning out to be a soothing balm for Bosnia & Herzegovina these days.
Just the other day, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho picked Bosnia’s Manchester City star Edin Dzeko as his Premier League’s Player of the Year. There is now talk that Chelsea could even bid for the City striker.
Bosnia will be the only country making its debut at the 2014 World Cup and everything seems to be going right for the new team. Dzeko even scored twice in Bosnia’s 2-1 victory over Ivory Coast recently.
Bosnia had been impressive on its World Cup qualifying road, topping Europe’s Group G with eight wins. The team’s head coach Safet Susic, one of the greatest players to emerge from the former Yugoslavia team with 21 goals from 54 international appearances, has been able to marshal his resources well and also instil discipline in the team.
And like Susic the player, the coach’s formula for success: attack, attack and attack. He does not like to complicate things, he likes to keep it simple… to score more goals than the rival.
Dzeko, who came good late in the EPL season, scoring 16 goals in 30 appearances, and the team’s other star Vedad Ibisevic have the talent to form one of most impressive attack partnerships in the World Cup. Stuttgart’s Ibisevic scored 10 goals from 26 games in the German Bundesliga.
While Dzeko came good with 10 goals in the World Cup qualifiers, Ibisevic chipped in with eight.
That apart, Bosnia will also have the intimidating presence of Stoke City’s Asmir Begovic in the goal.
The team is drawn with Argentina, Iran and Nigeria in Group F and Bosnia’s debut could be a very happy one. Argentina is the clear favourite to top the group but the debutant has an excellent chance to finish runner-up and move to the knockout round.
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