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:

Kosovo - still in limbo

There is much uncertainty when it comes to defining the origin of the native population of Kosovo, but the area was populated long time before the Slavic tribes entered the Balkan in 6^th and 7^th century. In the 9^th century the Bulgarian Empire introduced the region to Christianity and Eastern Orthodox belief. In the 12^th century this area came under Serbian rule by the principality of Rascia, later to be followed by the Serbian Empire established in 1346, and during this period Kosovo became the political and spiritual centre of the Serbs.

In 1389 Bosnian, Albanian and Serbian forces lead by Tsar Lazar were defeated by the Ottomans and by 1455 the Muslim rule were fully established. In the Western parts of the Ottoman Empire the Sultan established the Eyalet (province) of Rumelia, which stretched all over the Balkans with the Western outskirt where we find today’s border between Bosnia and Croatia. In 1877 The Vilayet (which also means province) of Kosovo were established. This was a smaller part of the Eyalet, which stretched from today’s Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, to the Eastern border of current Bosnia. The part which consisted of current South-Western Serbia and Northern Montenegro is spoken about as Sandzak by the Bosniak Muslims and Raska by the Serbs.

Many Serbs didn’t accept the Muslim rule and there were many uprisings. In 1690 30-40 000 Serbs should have emigrated in what has become known as “The Great Migration”, but this is disputed. As so much concerning Kosovo is. There should anyhow be no doubt about the fact that demographics in Kosovo have tilted in the favor of ethnic Albanians. There is one detailed article to be found at Wikipedia, but it is mostly based on Serbian sources. Considering how politicized the issue of Kosovo is - those numbers must be read in a very critical manner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Kosovo  It’s an interesting article, if it’s not all bogus, because it lacks a lot of references to the numbers presented.

Going beyond the discussion of who was inhibiting the area first and how the demographical composition has developed, Kosovo is a part of the Serbian nation – both by geography and consciousness. For it to legally become an independent nation it has to achieve this in dialogue with Belgrade, which has over-stretched the mandate given by the Serbs. Today’s development where the opposition-parties Liberal Democratic Party, New Serbia and Tomislav Nikolic’s Serbian Progressive Party have demanded the resignation of Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic might be an indication of such. Those 3 political parties counts for 42 of the 250 seats in the National Assembly; the Skupstina, but many of the deputies of the Serbian Radical Party (57 seats) should also be added to those - as Nikolic was the leader of the party when the votes for it was casted.  When considering the political strength of Nikolic it should also be mentioned that he lost the Presidential Election in 2008 to Boris Tadic. This with the smallest possible margin – and after winning the first round, but not with the necessary 50,1% needed to get the mandate.

Jeremic has been the one negotiating for Serbia with the EU for achieving a joint resolution where these two parties could present a mutual statement in front of the UN General Assembly. He had to back down on opposing the unilateral secession of Kosovo and the call for dialogue on the status of the province, or country. (Use of terms is usually depending on whether you are Serbian or Albanian.)

Nikolic expresses most likely a general disgruntle among the Serbs which feel that national sovereignty is way too much under pressure. If Tadic won’t listen to this sentiment I am afraid his fragile popularity will get another blow.

To make situation even worse the governing council of Kosovo Albanians announced yesterday that the Kosovo Security Force (KFS/KBS) could become the Kosovo Army after 2012. What a terrible timing! While the future status of Kosovo hasn’t been decided yet, this force might be perceived as a continuation of the former UCK/KLA; a force with the purpose to serve only Albanian interest. UCK/KLA was the forerunner to the Kosovo Protection Corps which had Sylejman Selimi as the Lieutenant General. He’s today Chief of Staff of KFS.  The well documented fear of attacks on both Serbian community and sacred places might grow larger and the resistance to any Albanian-run entity will grow equally.

If there shall be any reconciliation between the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo – they both have existed there for approximately 1400-1500 years - this is not a good way to build mutual trust. If there ever will be any. In the same fashion the future status of Kosovo must be achieved through some kind of consensus. The last days development has not contributed to a safe and predictable future for the people of Kosovo.

God bless instant delivery of contact lenses!

Wow! How it's raining! Seems like this was expected because the paradestreet of Knez Mihailova was emptying of people. Even the cafées were wrapping down their outdoors chairs and tables. Just in time for the Festival of Light to get an awful start. Poor guys!

If it wasn't for quick delivery I wouldn't have seen much light today either. The day started with me barbecuing my glasses. Not the rostilj of preference... I put them on the top of the bathroom furniture. Didn't think of the open downlights, always done this, but today they were too hot. You can see the result.

Out of contacts and without glasses - well the only thing to do was to find a more affordable shop then the ones I had checked last week. With the advice of Marija - hvala Marija - I found ABM in Terazije which offers 3 months of lenses for 30 euros. Good deal! My depreviation of the beautiful view of the Belgradian girls lasted just for a short while. Thank God!

Even more positive was the fact that these contacts could be bought there and then, and without any interference of any optician - which would have delayed the process for weeks, at least in Norway. That my vision is a bit blurry is just peanuts....

Pijaca Skadarlija

When you stroll down Skadarlija with all her restaurants and gipsy orchestras you will find this market at the bottom of the Bohemian quarter - and over the heavily trafficked Tsara Dusana. First and foremost it is a vegetable market, but it also features all kinds of bricka brack. They used to have this cool tank with alive fish waiting for the hungry housewife to come and choose for todays meal, but no longer. They still sell fish, but they are all dead as a herring…

The vendors are offering paradajz (BIG tomatoes), krastevac (cucumber), paprika (peppers), luk (onion), tikvice (immature squash), sljiva (plum), pecurke (mushrooms) and whatever the stomach desires. Many of them are old babe (grandmas) in whos faces you can see traces of the Yugoslavian Kingdom, the Tito-era and the wars of the Nineties. Maybe you need a bit imagination and a very sharp eye, but I think it is possible.

I asked at the salestands - in a very humble way and pointing with my camera - if I could picture their vegetables. Should had the guts to portray the babe also, but I don’t want to push my luck too much. After a few shots I went shopping and now I got what is needed for a few dinners; Pileci medaljoni sa pecurkama and my own recipe for cured beef, with fried potatoes- and tomatoes. Are you coming over?