Europe - and Serbia - in other's eyes.

This short comment will be on the funny ethno-centric map's of Europe made by London-based graphic designer Yanko Tsvetkov, and off course from a Serbian perspective.

First I have to mention the big disapointment that Serbia is "Uncharted" in several of the maps. But anyway - in the first map "Where I live" - which I guess is Tsvetkov's own view - Serbia is the country of Lepa Brena. A bit odd as she is from Brcko in Republika Srpska in Bosnia, but Joj, joj Miki Miki moj...

According to USA here's "Resident Evil", and the Bulgarian's view the Serb's as "Loose Cannon's" and according to Gay Men you will find "Homophobic Tribes" here, and that goes for Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania and Bulgaria as well.

You can have a look for yourself by clicking on the link below - many well made point's here :-)

MAPPING STEREOTYPES: The geography of prejudice by Yanko Tsvetkov

Bat-attack!

Last night I was recovering from the party after Rakija’s excellent concert at Akademija 28. Ordering pizza and just chilling in front of my computer. I was getting tired, but didn’t feel for going to bed. And then I see an insect flapping by. “Wow!” I thought, “That was big”. Looking up –and I tell you – it was not an insect; it was a freaking bat! Flapping around in my living-room! Uninvited!

I thought it doesn’t belong here and would probably be better off outside. I forgot about the reason it came in the first place. Bat’s like light – or so I’ve been told. I opened my window and tried to shush him out. I am quite convinced it was a he... Just after opening the window another bat arrived. Now there was two bats flying in circles in my living-room. I found it wise to leave and shut the door behind me. Computer and television was left on, and I forgot my cell-phone. When I wanted to go back in the room I was pretty scared because the bat’s attacked the door while I was trying to open it.

I forgot about that idea.  And you know what? While I was writing this some 2 hours ago the bat’s started circulating again. They had been hiding where I couldn’t find them. I got out of the room, but not so scared this time. Tried to go back and chase them out of the window, but they kept on flying. I got a friend over and we tried to catch them to throw them out – but no – and voila! enter the third bat!

The landlord’s son Tony came to the rescue. Tony is a big chap with stoic calm. He knew the right tactic; use pillows as baseball-bat’s to bat the bats out. Then he picked them up and threw them out of the window.

I must admit that I am still a bit shaky. Hopefully the bat-affair has come to an end, but I am anyhow waiting for a new one just stuka-diving down my neck

Exit Antic - Enter Jugovic

Today I am following up yesterday’s article about Serbian football.  Partizan lost unsurprisingly 1-0 to Shakthar Donetsk away, but that is not today’s headline. After a disappointing close-to-last-minute saved draw at home against Slovenia and a quite poor World Cup campaign Serbia’s coach Radomir Antic has been sacked.

Radomir Antic

Antic had been 16 years in Spain as a coach for clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid before he returned to coach the Serbian National Team. This 61-year old from Uzice has had a career with quite a few controversies, and on several occasions he's been sacked mid-season. It should be added that some of his engagements has been with struggling clubs. 

When coaching Barcelona he brought a sinking ship back on the track and the Barca-fans should be thankful for his role in bringing them to the top of Europe. Under him great talents like Victor Valdés and Andrés Iniesta was given their first chances at the senior team.

After the poor performance in the 2-1 loss against Australia in the World Cup Antic was given a four-match ban when he expressed his discontent with the referee when Serbia was denied a penalty. Together with the poor start of the qualifying capaign it all added up to the Serbian National Team’s board sacking Antic.

Vladimir Petrovic

The replacement is former Red Star, Bor, Vojvodina and Timisoara’s coach Vladimir Petrovic – Pizon – from French pigeon. He’s also been coaching Serbia and Montengro’s U-21 and China. His greatest achievement must have been as assistant for the Red Star-team winning 1991’s European Cup. 

He also had a decent career as a player, including 13 matches for Arsenal. When taking over Serbia this will be his third position in 15 months. Let’s hope for the Serbian player’s sake that this is not going to continue. And on hiring Petrovic the Serbian Football Federation’s Tomislav Karadzic commented: "Rather than go for an expensive import we opted to give a talented home-grown coach a chance".

 And dear readers, I promise not making this into a sports blog – promise!

Serbian football - home and abroad

Although Hugo Buli, a student returning from Germany, introduced Belgrade to football in 1896, the Serbian national football didn’t play their first match until 1911, where they lost 0-8 against HASK (Hrvatski akademski sportski klub). After the 1^st World War the Slavic people of the South came together and formed The First Yugoslavia. The Yugoslavian football organization was founded in 1919 and has been a member of FIFA since 1921.

During the the First and Second Yugoslavia the best achievement was 4^th place in the World Cup in 1930 and 1962, in the European Championship they became Runners-Up in both 1960 and 1968. After the break-up of the country in 1991 Belgrade continued as the head-quarter for the Yugoslavian football association. Due to war and sanctions the team was banned from international competition until the qualification for the World Cup 1998, where they eventually lost to the Netherlands in the Round of 16.

In the qualification for the WC 2006 the team competed as SCG. Serbian friends have told me that they were wondering: “What the hell is this SCG???” It turned to be an abbreviation for Srbija I Crna Gora – Serbia and Montenegro. Even more strange was the fact that when the World Cup started this country didn’t exist anymore, due to Montenegro’s independence achieved at the 3^rd of June 2006.

Since 2006 the name of the team has been Serbia. One by one the former republics of Yugoslavia, now independent countries, has parted with the Serbs and today the Orlovi – Eagles – has just started the qualifier for 2012’s European Championship in Poland and Ukraine. After beating the Faroe Islands away, they made a disappointing draw against Slovenia at Marakana Stadium,nick- named after the famous once 200 000 capacity stadium in Brazil and homeground for Crvena Zvezda – Red Star. This ground used to take 110 000 spectators, but today’s capacity is just the half.

Club football

Crvena Zvezda is the only Serbian club to ever win the European Cup. They beat Marseille on penalties after a 0-0 draw in Bari in the 1990/91-season, which were the last season of the SFR Yugoslavian league. During the SFRY the club won the championship 19 times. The runner-up is Partizan with 11 titles. In this period the all-time top-scorer was Slobodan Santrac who played for Partizan, OFK Beograd and Galenika Zemun making a total of 218 league goals between 1965 and 1983.

After SFRY the two clubs of Red Star and Partizan has continued the hegemony of Serbian football, with the former winning 6 Championships and the latter 11. This makes them natural rivals and the derby has been ranked by English Newspaper Daily Mail as the 4^th most prestigious in the World after Old firm in Glasgow, Fenerbahce – Galatasaray in Istanbul and the Argentinian clash of Boca Juniors and River Plate in “El Classico”.

The origin of the clubs are to be found at the end of the Second World War when the army established FK Partizan and Crvena Zvezda was initiated by members of the Serbian United Anitfascist Youth League, which were a fraction of the Communist Party.

It could have been an addition to these two clubs if FK Obilic could have continued what was started by Arkan’s ambitions to create a new club which could compete on the International arena. The para-military leader recruited fighters in Bosnia from the hardcore fans of Red Star (more about Serbian football-fans in another blog article). When he wasn’t awarded the post as director of the club he went on to create his own club named after the Serbian hero Milos Obilic who pretended to be a deserter and presented in front of the Ottoman sultan Murad the First, Obilic stabbed the latter to death and was shortly killed himself.

The football-club won the National Championship the season 1997/98 and became runners up the following season, much due to a rather original tactic; the opposition’s players were given an offer they seldom could refuse…  Some players might also have been a bit nervous in front of the fans at Milos Obilic stadium in Belgrade where they could risk being pointed at with guns. After the death of Arkan in 2000 the club was run by Ceca, which probably didn’t care much about football. Today they are playing in Zonska liga which equals 4^th division.

Serbian teams in Europe

When missing some of the advantages Obilic had from playing in their National League their only attempt at getting a place in the UEFA Champions League resulted in a 1-5 loss on aggregate to Bayern Munich in the season 1998/99. But Serbia in Europe is more than the glorious victory of Red Star in ’91. They have reached the semi-finals on several occasions and became Runner-up of the UEFA Cup in 1978/79. Red Star have also played in the group-stage of the UEFA Cup/Europa League.

Partizan’s European campaign had its best moment when beating Manchester United in the European Cup’s Semi-Final in 1965/66. They played Real Madrid in the Final at the Heysel Stadium where they scored the first goal, but after two Spanish goals Partizan lost 1-2. In the season 2003/04 after Lothar Matheus had brought the League title to Partizan stadium they eliminated Newcastle, which had reached the third place in the Premier League season 02/03. In the last qualifying match Partizan advanced on penalties, after a dramatic 1-1 after two times 90 minutes. Both teams won their away matches… In the following CL-group stage the Crni-bele – black and whites – made decent results, just failing to qualify for the play-off.

Now Partizan have a new chance to achieve a good result in Europe. After miraculously beating Anderlecht after a poor performance at home in the first leg, also advancing on penalties, they draw the teams of Braga, Arsenal and Shakhtar Donetsk. The latter team is tonight’s host in Donetsk of Eastern Ukraina. Shakthars best achievement in Europe is winning the 2008/09s UEFA Cup, todays Europa League, by beating Werder Bremen 2-1 in Istanbul.

Tonight the men of Aleksander Stanojevic will have to fight bravely and show improvement from the matches so far in the season. Maybe the 3-0 win over FK Rad in the domestic league show indication of this? Will the Moreira, Mladen Krstajic and Sasha Ilic be able to back up Cleo for a surprising win 1800 kilometres from home? Follow the match at Radio-televizija Srbije – RTS – or in any other possible way. Hajde Partizan!!!

Novak Djokovic is waiting in the rain

It’s 30 past midnight and I have returned from Café Salvador Dali. The Usual Suspects had gathered to watch Novak Djokovic beat Nadal. When the rain stopped it was 4-6/4-4, at a point when Nadal had recovered from 1-4. When the play will resume… well we’ll see. Postponed because of rain yesterday the final of the US Open has been dragging in length.

Djokovic is ranked as the World’s Number 2, after Nadal and surpassing Federer after Saturday's win. He’s the only male Serb player ever ranked so high. 

When it comes to the women there is in fact 3 that has ranked as the World’s Number 1; Monika Seles in 1991, and Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic in 2008.

Djokovic - which is nick-named Nole - won the Australian Open in 2008 and also the Bronze Medal in the Olympics same year. He reached the final of the US Open in 2007 where he lost to Roger Federer. I guess Saturday's win was a good revenge for that loss.

Now it is just to wait until the game starts again, maybe later tonight or tomorrow. Anyhow: napred Nole!!!

By the way: on the live pictures the court looks like the bottom of a swimming-pool...might be some time left before there will be any play.

Bosnian weather forecast

Isn't it fantastic? Lana is presenting the weather on Bosnian television. Every day she puts on a new outfit and make the Bosnian men happy. I am not sure if all get to know what kind of weather it will be tomorrow, but if you live through the next day - well - you will know how the weather was anyway.

Where is my internet-bill???

I can't simply find my internet-bill!
I've looked everywhere! Tonight the internet-provider closed my line, and it's Friday, which means I probably won't get it before Monday. Booo! It went 4 days over and they shut it down. No mercy there!

Thanks to Little Bays wi-fi I'm still able to go on-line, even that my "office" is of the more spartan and improvised kind....

Can you see the woman in the window? She might make reflections similar to the ones in the song you find below: