Slovenia 3 – 4 Bosnia

Well, the game just finished: a well deserved victory for Bosnia in the middle of Slovenia. It just goes to show that, for all the problems surrounding us, we’re still a footballing country. Ibišević set the tone early, scoring in the 2nd minute, and then drew a penalty about 15 minutes later, which Misimović converted for 2:0. A lapse in concentration let the Slovenians claw one back in the 27th, but Džeko and Ibišević scored again in the 53rd and 63rd minutes respectively. Slovenia’s top weapon, Milivoje Novakovič (Koln), eventually scored two more (one of them from the penalty spot) for the final 4:3.

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.