1. University. The new semester has started and I have a very heavy work-load. Recently, I haven’t had much time for anything extracurricular, much less a football blog. But although the past few weeks have been rough, I think I’ve finally settled into the rhythm of things. Hopefully I’ll be able to write a little more frequently (say once a week?) in February.

2. European football’s winter break. It seems that not much exciting has happened lately. Training matches aren’t really worth writing about, and the transfer speculation that I had previously mentioned failed to materialize. If there has been any news this January, it’s been bad news. Ibišević’s injury is obviously the biggie. I’ve already explained why it doesn’t leave me worried for our attack, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t leave a sour taste as well.

The gray clouds over Bosnian football have since then drifted over to more familiar territory – the FA. After promising a friendly against Uruguay, the situation rapidly deteriorated to the point where we actually don’t have an opponent for that term. Let that sink in for a moment: our FA is incapable of scheduling an international friendly. Could you imagine what would happen to such imbeciles in, say, England?

It’s all made for a pretty lousy atmosphere in the early build-up to the series against Belgium. At this point, we can only wait for the major leagues to really get going again. Maybe this spring will bring some more positive surprises, just like the fall brought Ibišević. We’ll see… and until then, I’ll find something to write about.

As you may have guessed, I’m a Bosnian myself. This means that the country’s football culture is something I’ve grown up in and have a strong personal interest in. While Bosnia-Herzegovina is a relative unknown in world football, it has a long and storied tradition – a tradition that I’ll try my best to convey through my writing here.

Because it’s a relative unknown, however, I hope to start this blog off with a series of posts introducing the country’s football history, major issues related to the sport and an overview of our players and staff. I assure you that the situation with Bosnian football is one of the most interesting and chaotic in Europe today, and I hope you’ll stick with me for the ride.