The obvious solution is named Miralem Pjanic. In the mere five minutes he had at the end of the game, he showed exactly why he needs to play the full 90 minutes. It was his play that set up the already infamous crossbar/post combination, and I’m sure there would have been more had he been around longer. The Portuguese have shown that they can completely stiffle Misimovic, but I don’t think they can completely stiffle both Misimovic and the creative engine behind Olympique Lyonnais.

Now as for that crossbar/post. On the one hand, it’d be quite rich to say that we were unlucky. The Portuguese dominated the game, particularly in terms of sheer possession, and in fact we were lucky that they have absolutely no idea how to finish. Sure, they got the ball to our third of the field and it looked pretty, but then they did little more than dance around the penalty box. Part of it is our obvious height advantage, but that hardly explains it. Horrible crosses, lame set pieces, persistently wide shots, bundled passes… frankly, a team with that kind of advantage in possession should have scored at least another goal. The Portuguese didn’t, and it’s not because they were terribly unlucky but because they just don’t know how. But going back to my original point, while we were by far the weaker team for vast stretches of the game, it’s also a fact that we could very easily be heading back home with a draw right now, and in that sense we’re unfortunate not to.

Speaking of home, what can we expect? I’m not too optimistic. Not so much because of what we saw tonight (I believe it would’ve looked different with better player selection), but because we lost Emir Spahic to yellow cards. It was because of him that Nani was never able to do much after passing Salihovic, and it’s hard to exaggerate what this loss means to our defense. None of our potential substitutes come close to filling his shoes, in large part because they’re nowhere near as mobile as him. With that in mind, it’s hard to see the Portuguese not scoring a goal, and if they do so before us then we’re probably done for. When it’s all said and done, I’m afraid that our chances at World Cup qualification will turn out to have sailed away with that damned crossbar.

But while there’s still a game left, we’re allowed to have hope, right? First off, the yellow cards have also given us a blessing in disguise, since Muratovic and Rahimic can no longer play and Ciro will finally be forced to put in more creative options (i.e. Pjanic and Bajramovic respectively). Our defense will have to come through big time; Safet Nadarevic will have to repeat his performance tonight, Sanel Jahic will have to do better and (most likely) Boris Pandza will have to do at least as well as he did against Belgium. From there we simply have to overwhelm them offensively, which seems laughable after tonight’s performance, but I think it’s entirely possible with Pjanic on the field. One goal is all it would take to put us back in the driver’s seat, and with two creative midfielders and 20,000 screaming fans I think we’re up for it.

Ratings:

Hasagic (7.5) – Very impressive tonight. Regained the confidence of the fans and dispelled concerns about being out of form. His needless dribbling has given us heart attacks for years, but he did everything else right. Not to blame for the goal.
Jahic (5.5) – A relatively poor performance, mirroring that of the team as a whole. The weakest of our three center-backs.
Nadarevic (7) – A strong performance. He’ll have to lead the defense in the home tie.
Spahic (6.5) – A sloppy handball, but he ultimately made a number of crucial interventions. He was responsible for stopping Nani and will be sorely missed.
Ibricic (5) – It was painful to watch a man with a reputation as a dribbler turn around at nearly every challenge and pass the ball back to his defense. His work ethic has often been enough to overcome his many limitations at this position, but not tonight. A nice crossbar, but direct responsibility for the conceded goal as well.
Salihovic (5.5) – Worked very hard offensively, but found to be lacking against a winger of Nani’s qualities. Partial responsibility for the conceded goal by conceding the ball in midfield.
Muratovic (5) – Distinctly average. Occasionally held up the ball well, but did nothing to assist our attack as a player in his position should. Taking up space.
Rahimic (5.5) – Some clumsy moves, but also never really allowed to do his job properly by the referee.
Misimovic (4) – Arguably his worst ever outing with the national team. The Portuguese stuck to him like glue, and he didn’t have the speed or breathing space to do anything about it.
Dzeko (6) – Did all he could. Worked his ass off, dribbled past Portuguese midfielders and even had a few chances.
Ibisevic (5.5) – Perhaps more limited in this formation than Dzeko, but ultimately stranded as well.

Muslimovic (6) – Showed a spark coming off the bench. Could well replace Ibisevic in next Wednesday’s line-up, further compounding our height advantage.
Pjanic (n/a) – Incomplete. Could have earned a 7 if he had kept going. Absolutely has to start the next game.

Ciro (4) – No substitutions until the 82nd minute. Muratovic from the get go. The fact that we’re playing an antiquated formation in the first place.

Notes on the opposition: Portugal is a very impressive team. Played some very nice football, even if their finishing was quite poor. Pepe was man of the match and put in a great performance. Several of their players – namely Nani and Liedson – got on my nerves for going down at the slightest contact.

And lastly, what was with the random music they kept blaring over the speakers? Was that Europe’s “Final Countdown”? I can’t even begin to describe how annoying it got. But two can play that game. I propose we wire the speakers in Zenica to loop the introduction to “Lipe Cvatu” every 15 seconds. That will show them.

I swear, it’ll give you more goosebumps than the chorus of Yugoslav band-aid when you were like, what, six and a half?

Anyways.

- You can look at this game in a number of different ways. Certainly, it wasn’t a simple case of domination, and we have to admit that Belgium had an initiative in those first 20 minutes of the second half when they scored their equalizer (up until our fans paused the game that is). That said, it’s still a fully-deserved win for us. Belgium never really impressed me. In fact, they were a dud during the entire first half and a disaster for the remainder of the second. That leaves you with somewhere between 20-25 minutes of quality football – hardly enough for a win against a team of our caliber. The absence of Kompany and Van Buyten obviously hurt them, but we were missing four regulars so it’s hardly an excuse.

- I can’t help but feel that this game came down to mentality. On our side, the pause helped us collect ourselves and move past that cursed Balkan defeatism. On the Belgian side, their entire approach to the game was horribly condescending. What’s that you say? Six points in six games? Yeah, good luck with that. I mean, seriously, what am I missing? Of the players they had at their disposal going into today’s game I saw a couple of domestic superstars and some up-and-coming youngsters. We had 7,000 screaming fans, a full deck of players starring at comparable clubs (PAOK, Hajduk, Lokomotiv) and the best offensive partnership in the Bundesliga. Belgium doesn’t even look better on paper – how about some respect?

- Ciro seems to have finally learned from his mistake against Turkey. You can’t play bunker when your defense is far and away the weakest part of the team. Play offensive. Play with two strikers. Don’t even think about fighting to keep the draw. If we do qualify for South Africa, it will be on the wings of our offense – let’s play to our strength.

- No individual player made me happier than Zlatan Bajramović, who came back from an exruciating 14-month ordeal with an on/off toe injury to score the decisive third goal. Prior to these toe troubles, Zlatan was probably our most valuable individual performer on the European club scene. At a time when the rest of today’s team’s backbone was just starting out, he was a highly-regarded regular at top-form Schalke 04. He was also a fan-favorite, occasionally serving as captain and participating in the original boycott against the NFSBiH. His long fall from top was painful to watch as a fan, so I can only imagine what it was like for him; after causing all the trouble by encouraging him to play through the pain, Schalke unceremoniously released Zlatan last summer, and he re-aggrivated his injury several times in trying to make a comeback for Eintracht Frankfurt. I think everyone was happy to see his name on the roster for Belgium, but it seemed no one actually expected him to receive playing time. For him to anchor our midfield for half an hour and slide in a beautiful goal… it’s everything you could’ve asked for.

- Boris Pandza and Sanel Jahić. Both defenders. Both players that the fans have been wanting to see in the national team for months. Both repeatedly snubbed by Ciro. Both performing above and beyond what was expected of them. Jahic, as versatile as anybody in Europe today, filled in for Rahimic at DM and played a phenomenal game even if you ignore that crucial second-half goal. Pandza, once a highly touted prospect, finally seems to have justified the early hype. He didn’t place a foot wrong the whole time, and it’s increasingly clear that Hajduk Split will not be the last stop in his career. If he can muster a repeat performance in Zenica, we seem to have finally found a new partner for Spahic in the back (and one for the future at that). The same goes for Jahic, but with the added bonus that he can become the new starter at four or five different positions.

The good: The big story of this game is the emergence of Ibišević. He’s had a fantastic season for Hoffenheim so far, but was never able to translate it to the international level. Today he got a proper chance and made it count – I’m looking forward to seeing more of him. It was also nice to see him paired with Džeko; the two played together on a great U-21 squad and apparently the chemistry never left. This match once again confirmed that our attack and midfield are on a very high level.

The bad: Unfortunately, this match also confirmed once again that our defense is the biggest problem. Part of this is Blažević’s fault, since he called up next to no defenders to replace the injured starters. Either way, the players we have in place right now are not enough to get us to South Africa.

And the ugly: All’s well that ends well, but Blažević’s actions leading up to this match are a cause for concern. Taking over from Kodro, he pledged that agents and other outside factors wouldn’t have any influence in team selection (a traditional problem for Bosnia, which – no joke – has one of the highest football-agents-per-capita in Europe). Whether it’s because he’s corrupt or senile, the build-up to this match would suggest otherwise. Instead of using it to try out new defenders, he called up two nobodies from the premijer liga because he “heard good things” about them. We can only hope that Blažević will take the time between now and Bosnia’s next friendly to scout out some much-needed new blood for our back four.

In my next post, I’ll try to offer up some candidates for these positions in a squad-overview. Until then, however, I’m happy to be optimistic after today’s convincing offensive performance.