Winning football coach rallies BiH's three nationalities

17/09/2008

A thrashing of Estonia has inspired multiethnic support for BiH's football team and coach.

By Ivo Scepanovic for Southeast European Times -- 17/09/08

Miroslav "Ciro" Blazevic. [Getty Images]

Chat room participants have started to call him Tito. Miroslav "Ciro" Blazevic, the coach of the Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) football team, probably has nothing in common politically with the late Yugoslav communist leader, but they say no one has matched Tito and Ciro in uniting the three major ethnic groups of BiH.

The September 10th World Cup qualifier victory of 7-0 over Estonia in the central town of Zenica meant the ethnic Croatian coach's realised his dream of awakening national unity.

"I want unity. Without [it], we can't achieve the results we want," he said during the summer when local media, many football fans and various Bosnian players and coaches opposed his taking the helm of BiH's national team.

Ciro, who coached Croatia to a stunning bronze-medal finish at the 1998 World Cup, experienced a frosty reception in some parts of BiH at first.

"I was born in Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I know the mentality, and we can be strong only if united," "the coach of all coaches", as they call him, kept saying.

"It's amazing. With just one match, he got everyone to start caring about the national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina," Marijan Ivankovic, an ethnic Croatian football fan from Herzegovina, said.

In the past, Bosnian Croats followed the successful team of Croatia, while ethnic Serbs preferred neighbouring Serbia's squad. The Bosnian Serb daily Nezavisne Novine admitted the BiH team's triumph over Estonia was "a crossroad for football in Bosnia and Herzegovina".

"I won't invite Bosnian Muslims, Serbs or Croats onto the team. I'll invite good players and will not care where they come from. ... And I know ordinary people will support me," Blazevic repeatedly said after becoming coach.

A TV show asked him whether he would succeed in inducing Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodik to support the national team of BiH.

"I admire him as a political leader," Ciro replied, obviously striving for another inroad towards his goal of "achieving unity" for the BiH squad.

Ciro has a gift for rallying people to his side; very few of them blamed him for BiH's 1-0 loss in an away World Cup qualifier against Euro 2008 champion Spain at the beginning of September. The standing ovation that greeted the 7-0 demolition of Estonia gave him a bulletproof aura in BiH.

"The people of Bosnia and Herzegovina have suffered much; they need a little joy," Ciro concluded, earning himself more than a little peace to prepare his multiethnic team for the next challenge -- in Turkey on October 11th.