WCQ Review: Serbia 2 – 0 Faroe Islands

One of the most common dillemas for a football fan is whether to be satisfied whenever his team gets all 3 points, or to remain critical regarding the level of play it has shown on the pitch. Last night, Serbia played Faroe Islands at home and non-surprisingly managed to defeat the island nation to take all three home points, but the spectators leaving the Red Star Stadium were far from satisfied. It is true that in today’s football nobody musn’t be condisered a minnow, but without any disrespect towards our last night’s opponents, I’d like to point out that Faroe Islands are a team mostly made of part-timers and are perhaps the weakest football nation in Europe. To defeat such a team at home with two headers (one being a lucky own goal) isn’t really a feat. Not all is bleak, though, and maybe we shouldn’t be so harsh towards our boys. Review to follow:

The whole game was played in a similar manner, Serbia launched attack after attack, and the Faroese played ultra-defensive almost without any desire to threat Dišljenković’s goal. It was completely a one-sided game, but with the Faroese heroic defending and our boys’ numerous misses, victory and goals didn’t look so easy to get as on paper. Serbia had many chances at the start of the game, but awful shooting, woodwork and Faroese goalkeeper Jákup Mikkelsen’s excellent saves prevented ‘The White Eagles’ from taking the expected lead. It was the opposition defender Jacobsen that brought us the goal, heading a ball by Žigić into his own net. Many expected Serbia to continue scoring now that the barrier has been breached, but the game contiuned in similar fashion after the break and the only other goal in the came in the 88th minute in the form of Žigić’s header, earning the Valencia player a hero’s role for the home side. By that time Faroese were playing with 10 men after Næs got the second yellow card, and Žigić’s goal slighty reduced the crowd’s anger, which was evident throughout the entire game.

The inability to score goals is one of Serbia’s biggest problems for long time now, and last night’s game demonstrated that weakness very clearly. Despite all the possession and attacks, it was as if Serbians simply couldn’t make the ball go in the net. It has become a tradition in qualifying that stronger teams are not such a threat for us as the so-called minnows, such as Azerbaijan, Kazahstan and Armenia, who directly prevented us from reaching the last two Euros. We’ll see what happens on wednesday against France, if tradition continues, we should leave Paris undefeated. It is in these ‘minor’ games, however, when our opponents play ultra-defensively, that we need to search for a reform and imrovement in our game. Radomir Antić has been in charge of the team for only a few days now and it’s understandable that we aren’t shooting on all cylinders yet. France game will be a good test for our team, and I hope our boys show their class in Paris. A match preview to follow in the next few days.

Serbia line-up:

Dišljenković
Rukavina – Vidić – Dragutinović – Obradović
Krasić – Stanković – Milijaš – Tošić
Pantelić – Žigić

Jacobsen – 30′ (OG) (Serbia)
Žigić – 88′ (Serbia)

Luckily for us, France and Romania, our biggest contenders for qualification, both lost their opening games. France were defeated away to Austria by 3:1 and will be under a lot of pressure to deliver against us on wednesday. Romania, a team similar to ours in the terms of strenght and quality, were humiliated by Lithuania at home and definetely made a lot of Serbian and French fans happy. History, however, tells us not to celebrate this setback of theirs, Poland also lost their opening home game to Finland in the Euro 2008 qualifiers but still managed to top the group over Portugal and Serbia. We should better stick to our own games and try to win each one of them. Calculation never brought us any good at all.