Serbian Football: A Brief History Lesson

September 8th, 2008 | by: Nikola | Comments(4)

I have to admit I was tempted to write a brief review of Serbian history, georgaphy and interesting facts in order to introduce the country itself to the people that don’t know almost anything about it, but as a great history lover, I realised I simply couldn’t do it – it definetely couldn’t be brief. Now, as much as I don’t like my own country to be mixed with Siberia and some other completely non-related geographical objects on this planet, I guess it wouldn’t be good if I bored a few football fans to death. However, I thought that writing a few lines about football history (and history with direct effects on football) would be useful: with so many name, territory and political changes in the region formerly known as Yugoslavia, I couldn’t blame anyone for not being able to tell what was SFRY, FRY and Serbia and Montenegro. I promise I’ll be short and simple, trust me that after this post many things about South Slavic football will become much clearer.

When football started to gain importance in this part of the world, Serbia was a part of the country called Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929 and generally known by that name). Yugoslavia was a rather important football nation at the time, playing and reaching the semis of the first World Cup (Uruguay, 1930) and started to grow a reputation for itself in those pioneer days. The country was conquered and occupied in 1941, and started its new life after the Second World War under the new, socialist/communist regime. This ”Second Yugoslavia”, ruled by the famous Tito, was basically the same country as the pre-war Kindgom, comprising what is today Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Football thrived after the war: Yugoslavia didn’t have many international successes (altough it played excellent football during these several decades), but football in general grew in importance and quality. Four biggest Yugoslav clubs: Red Star Belgrade, Partizan Belgrade, Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split were true superpowers on the Europan level at certain points in country’s existence. Rivalry and match attendance were high, stadia which were built then are still considered the best we’ll have in years to come (which isn’t really a thing to be proud of), and it wasn’t really a great surprise when Red Star won the European Champions’ Cup in 1991, albeit at the very end of this whole era.

That same year, the whole 70-year old entity known as Yugoslavia ceased to exist, divided into five new nations: FR Yugoslavia (comprised of Serbia and Montenegro, much smaller than the old Yugoslavia), Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia. The ensuing wars destroyed and damaged many things, economy for example, but the blow that football suffered was probably unparallelled. The bigger league didn’t exist any more, Yugoslav heavyweights didn’t have proper competition in their own national leagues and at the time when football was transformed into business, former big clubs couldn’t find enough funds or support to retain their European status. I wouldn’t make a mistake if I said that the biggest blow came to the new, lesser Yugoslavia: sanctions imposed to the country also applied to football, and the result was very painful. Red Star, European Champion in 1991, hadn’t been able to qualify for the Champions’ Legaue ever since. Partizan, the other Belgrade giant, managed it only once (2003). With the current condition in today’s club football, it is very hard to imagine that this country had an European and World (EUSA) Champion 17 years ago.
Yugoslav national team wasn’t that hard-hit by the wars and sanctions themselves, altough it was banned from playing until the 1998 World Cup. However, the old Yugoslav NT was gone and most of the potential it had was now distributed between five nations. With many things changed in club football, the whole infrastructure was falling apart, with criminal interference and dominance in the world of football and the inability to adjust to important flows in modern football. Altough it could be considered a Dark Era, this condition in football remains until today. Yugoslavia was renamed to Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, and the country itself fell apart in 2006. This dissolution didn’t hurt neither Serbia or Montenegro as much as some may thought, and it could be argued that with the creation of an independent state of Serbia sports in general recieved a much needed boost. Serbian anthem, Serbian flag and a feeling of patriotism were seeked for like a rejuvenating elixir for football in this country. That’s why the failiure to qualify for Euro 2008 wasn’t very well recieved, and despite the feeling of dissapointment, there are great hopes for this generation and the chances of Antić’s men for reaching South Africa. With so many successes on U21 level, this new generation of Serbian footballers definetely has the potential to deliver and do something great. We’ll see in the next few months whether they are able to meet the whole nation’s expectations or not. I certainly hope they do.

That would be all from me fow now: if you have some questions, tips or such, feel free to comment. We have a very important game in Paris on wednesday, so if you’re interested, drop by and check the match preview. This may actually be THE game when Domenech gets fired, you wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?