News round-up 4

A lot has happened since our second victory in the series against Belgium, so I thought the time was right for a brief news roundup. The four things I want to loosely cover are: 1.) The game itself, 2.) our subsequent (and drastic) move up the FIFA rankings, 3.) the storm of transfer speculation that now surrounds some of our players and 4.) our prospects of finally qualifying for a major tournament. We’ll begin below the fold.

- So first for the game itself. As you no doubt know by now, Bosnia-Herzegovina beat Belgium 2-1 in the rematch in Zenica. I didn’t post anything after the game, largely because it was a very different feeling. If our 4-2 victory led to wide-spread euphoria, this one led to a collective sigh of relief. Edin Džeko scored two goals just minutes apart in the middle of the first half and that proved to be more than enough. At that point, Kenan Hasagić, replacing Vedad Ibišević as the token footballer in the commentator box, predicted that we were in pace to win 5-0. Maybe we were, but as the players later admitted themselves, the team basically pulled back a bit and just played to preserve the win. The result was a relatively boring affair, not helped by the fact that Marjan Mijajlović (our away-game commentator and cult hero) was in the stands and not behind the mic. One of the Belgians received a red card in the 60-somethingth minute (I can’t be bothered to look up the details), which apparently made us a little to comfortable. The Belgians clawed one back in the 88th minute, but the team had enough sense to hold and not make any catastrophic blunders. Since Turkey lost to Spain again in Istanbul, this means we’re now 4-points clear in second place (more on that later). Here’s a brief highlight video for all those interested.

- Not surprisingly, our dramatic success in this latest round of qualifiers saw us jump 20-places in the FIFA rankings, to 36th in the world and 24th in Europe. We seem to have surprised everyone but ourselves with this, as we were voted “biggest surprise” on Fifa.com’s recent front page poll, and Western football media in general have been full of praise in the last two weeks. This rankings surge sees us finally (and justifiably) climb back into UEFA’s 3rd pot. I know I’m not alone among Bosnians in believing that a footballing country with our talent and tradition belongs in the 2nd pot and somewhere between #20-30 in the world rankings (closer to #20). I fully expect this situation to fix itself by the end of qualifying.

- Another consequence of the Belgium games it that our players are suddenly in high demand again. First and foremost amongst them is Edin Džeko, who followed up his stellar performance in the qualifiers by scoring a brace in Wolfsburg’s recent demolition of Bayern. Media from any number of countries have been wild about him recently, but I won’t bother listing all the separate scraps of transfer information I’ve picked up over the internet. Instead, I’ll merely list the clubs that have been linked to him in the past 10 days or so:

Manchester United, Arsenal, AC Milan, Bayern Munich, AS Roma, Lyon, Hamburger SV, Villareal, Marseille, Sevilla, Atletico Madrid, Everton, Paris SG, Fullham, Lokomotiv Moscow and Sunderland.

Enough said.

But Džeko isn’t our only player currently in demand; several of the other starters impressed scouts from a number of the big-name clubs. Emir Spahić is particularly adamant about moving this summer, and rumor has it that he impressed scouts from Hamburg, even though they had originally come for Semir Štilić. Similarly, Galatasaray came to evaluate Zlatan Muslimović and instead left with praise for our univerzalac Sanel Jahić. Hajduk Split’s Boris Pandža and Senijad Ibričić also impressed. Even Safet Nadarević has been linked with Anderlecht, but rumors maintain that he’s actually preparing for a move to England. As long as these players finish their club seasons on a similar level that they showed in the World Cup qualifiers, I expect that the summer transfer window will be an interesting one for Bosnian football.

- The last thing I wanted to touch upon was our chance of qualifying for World Cup 2010. As I mentioned earlier, we are now firmly in 2nd place, 4 points ahead of 3rd place Turkey. Barring a miracle, Belgium is effectively out of the picture. With four games left, we effectively control our destiny. Sure, that infamous game against Denmark presented us with a more immediate chance of qualifying, but we have never been this close at this stage of qualifying. The way I see it, our remaining matches can be split into three categories.

Must win: Armenia (A), Estonia (A)
Should win: Turkey (H)
Could win: Spain (H)

We have the great advantage that our schedule is pretty favorable to us; our away games are against the two weakest teams in our group, while we face our toughest opponents at home. I think the general mentality right now is that we’re going into the rest of qualifying with the goal of winning all of our games until Spain. We are, objectively speaking, a better team than either Armenia or Estonia, and to qualify for a major tournament we simply can’t afford to lose any points there. Turkey, being our direct competitor for the playoff spot, is particularly tricky. A win would (barring some unprecedented disaster in Armenia) guarantee the play-off spot. A draw would do just as well as long as we won our two away games. A loss… well let’s not even think about it.

So, as I said above, we’re really going into this with the goal of winning our next three games. This means that if Spain, currently six points ahead, stumbles in one of its next three matches, a win in our final showdown would give us first place in the group. This might sound a little far-fetched to some, but I really don’t think we have anything to fear from Spain… I think the last game in Bosnia will be wide open, with any of the possible results equally likely. Unfortunately, Spain’s schedule from here on out doesn’t look promising for this scenario to occur; it’s next three matches are Belgium (H), Estonia (H) and Armenia (A). Our best bet is to hope that Belgium, under a new coach, can spring a surprise in Iberia. Either way, however, our destiny is in our own hands as far as the play-off goes. It’s way too early to talk about possible opponents, since 2nd place in most of the groups is still wide open. As things currently stand, I give us a 50-50 spot of qualifying if we make the play-off, depending largely on who we’re drawn against. Of course, we first have to make it to the play-off, but it’s not too early to dream, especially while this line-up exists in my head:

Till next time.