So it was that in the [friendly] match against Nigeria the anthem was howled down as usual. Nevertheless, the players themselves were more popular than ever, and unprecedented optimism over the team's chances in France were spreading around the country. Cries of "Dejo," to the tune of Harry Balafonte's Banana Boat Song rang out everywhere in tribute to Dejan Savicevic. "Dejo, you are a genius, you are a God," went the national team's unofficial World Cup song. Only a few people - unfortunately including the coach Slobodan Santrac - remained untouched by the mood of national euphoria. One newspaper ran a poll to find out who its readers least wanted to see in France. The lucky winners were Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, Santrac himself, and Savo Milosevic.
Almost the only dark cloud on the horizon for fans before the first game with Iran was the attitude of the national TV station whose infuriating habit of inserting commercials into the middle of matches had caused the weekly magazine Vremo to call for a boycott of all goods advertised during the World Cup. The advertisements interrupted the games perpetually - when players were injured, when the ball went out for a corner or a throw-in, and sometimes also after a goal.
Iran were unattractive and unknown opponents for most of the fans, and even some of the players. We knew something was wrong as soon as we heard Savo's voice during the playing of the national anthem: "They [the fans] are singing!", he said. The majority of Yugoslavia's supporters at the game were exiles who had left the country before the civil war an retained an emotional attachment to the old anthem. It was a discordant start to what turned out to be a nightmare game, from which Yugoslavia escaped thanks only to a feeble free-kick from Sinisa Mihailovic which the Iran keeper allowed to creep in, giving Yugoslavia a 1-0 win. The mood changed almost instantly. People started to talk about how much they had enjoyed watching the last World Cup, when Yugoslavia were excluded because of international sanctions. Ironic chants of "bring back sanctions" began to make themselves heard. Rumours began to circulate that all was not well among the players. It suddenly seemed as though most of the starting XI were unfit. In particular, the numerous and mysterious injuries ascribed to Savicevic became a national joke.
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| Dejan Sevicevic |
The next match, however, was no laughing matter. For most people in Yugoslavia, Germany looms large as a historical enemy rather than simply a rival in sport. "Let's beat the Germans and after that we don't care," was a sentiment heard among many fans. The determination of some of the players to provide "football war on the field" did little to calm the atmosphere. Both Yugoslavia's goals were celebrated with flares and gunfire, and after the second one we were already world champions in the minds of many. Even in this game, however, the dream lasted only 75 minutes. Yugoslavia are used to throwing away big leads, but still it was hard to believe that a repeat of yet another debacle against the Germans - 1976 - was on the cards. That year in the European Championship semi-final, Germany trailed 2-0 at halftime, only to end up 4-2 winners. This time around, Germany came back to draw 2-2 in the last 15 minutes.
Fortunately, the final group game was against the US. With news that Savicevic and Mijatovic would finally play alongside each other, the mood reverted to the boundless hubris seen before the Iran game. "Repeat of 1956?" asked one headline, recalling the only previous meeting between the two sides, which Yugoslavia won 9-1. After an early goal, we got a shock when Mijatovic went off injured in the 29th minute. For the next hour the players were uninterested in creating any decent opportunities, and just wanted to avoid injury. Yugoslavia won 1-0.
The official verdict was that the team had done the job. The empty streets showed what the fans thought of another poor performance and the prize of a game against Holland. A couple of days after the match, the first sets of supporters started drifting back from France. They decided not to stay for the Holland game, because greedy officials from the YFA were selling the tickets on the black market at extremely high prices. The distribution of tickets for Yugoslav fans was shrouded in mystery throughout the tournament.
Over the weekend the injury news was encouraging, although after the tournament we found out the bulletins were outright lies. Santrac promised that the most attacking formation would start the game. Yet when the TV coverage started it was immediately announced that he had discovered that Holland would start with six attacking players, and he had therefore opted to play 4-5-1. Back home, we were speechless with horror at this choice of the unpopular formation known as "the bunker." Although Yugoslavia had chances to win, notably through Mijatovic's missed penalty, going out to a last-minute goal was somehow logical. Santrac refused to accept responsibility for a terrible performance. Worse, for many fans, he will always be remembered as the only person who opened his mouth during the playing of the anthem.
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Predrag Mijatovic's penalty hits the bar
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Before the end of the tournament, a new song had already become popular, a losers' anthem with the refrain: "Fuck you footballers, you play like amateurs." Yet out of all this bitterness and disappointment, there was still something left in the tournament for Yugoslavia. Perhaps surprisingly for many people outside the country, it was called Croatia.
(Extracts from Clash of Symbols by Dragomir Pop-Mitic, in the book Back Home: How the world watched France 98)
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