Yugoslavs Kick Up a Storm Over Soccer
Six years ago, Ivica Kralj was a conscripted soldier fighting for Bosnia’s Serbs. Today, he is the star goalkeeper of Yugoslav soccer. But as he prepares to represent his country in this summer’s World Cup, he often finds himself the target of Serbian fans’ harshest taunts.
Kralj plays for Belgrade’s Partizan club, one of the oldest in Yugoslavia. Up against archrival Red Star on a sunny Saturday afternoon, Kralj was not having a good day. One ball whizzed past him and then another, and the Partizans fell to defeat.
Red Star fans let Kralj have it. “Ivica, Ustashe!” the crowd of thousands roared repeatedly as they hurled colored smoke bombs his way. By invoking the name of World War II Croatian Nazis, they managed to challenge Kralj’s ethnicity, patriotism and quality as a human being all at once. And then they chanted slogans about raping his girlfriend.
It’s rough in the world of Yugoslav soccer.
Forced to the sidelines as the Yugoslav federation disintegrated, with teams banned from international play by wartime sanctions, the game of soccer--this country’s national obsession--has suffered an appalling decline.
Matches are violent, fan clubs vicious. The caliber of play is down, the stable of players and coaches depleted. The deterioration of the sport has mirrored the deterioration of the country, with each a shadow of its former self. And into the lurch have crept some despicable characters, warlords and profiteers.
Now the Serb-dominated Yugoslavia hopes for redemption as it prepares to compete in its first worldwide soccer championship since sanctions were imposed in 1992 as punishment for the Belgrade government’s role in fomenting war in neighboring Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Most sanctions, including a sports ban, have been lifted, although new measures may be imposed because of violence in Serbia’s Kosovo province.
“This is a turning point for Yugoslav sports,” Kralj said. “This is our last, best opportunity to prove that we were punished unjustly. They did a bad thing mixing sports and politics. We were all hurt.”
Yugoslavia qualified for the tournament thanks to a stunning 7-1 romp over Hungary last fall. While the team won’t be on the level of powerhouses like Brazil or Italy, it is expected to perform respectably. It will play in the group that includes the United States, which many Serbs blame for levying sanctions.
Redemption for some Serbs could be revenge for others, if only on a soccer pitch.
Top Players’ Last Chance to Shine
For the national team players, the psychological investment in the World Cup performance is even greater than it is for Yugoslav fans. Most of the players were part of the so-called golden generation that won the world junior championship in Chile in 1988. They were considered to be at their prime for the 1994 World Cup, making their exclusion all the more bitter. Now in their late 20s and early 30s, these players see this year’s tournament as their last chance to shine.
“There is no makeup exam if the team fails,” sports columnist Aleksandar Mihajlovic wrote in the weekly newsmagazine Nin.
Newspapers and magazines are full of breathless reports on the upcoming World Cup, which will be played in France, with one holding a day-by-day countdown to the finals (the assumption being that Yugoslavia will advance) and others offering calculations of the mathematical probability of being matched against Croatia.
A violent contest in 1990 between teams from Belgrade and Zagreb, the Croatian capital, was widely seen as the precursor to war between Serbia and Croatia, the first in a bloody trail of conflicts that ultimately broke apart the Yugoslav federation. Amid tight security, Serbian and Croatian teams met again last year, for the first time since 1990--the Serbs won, 1-0--and the acrimony remains strong.
The United Nations imposed harsh economic sanctions on the rump Yugoslavia in May 1992 that prohibited most international trade with the country; embargoed its oil; cut air, rail and sea connections; and froze its foreign bank accounts and financial assets. The sanctions, the first slapped by the U.N. on a European country, were meant to punish the government for waging a war that razed entire ethnic communities and claimed more than 200,000 lives.
Average Serbs, however, most felt the sting of the sanctions in two ways: restrictions on travel and the banning of sports teams from international competition.
Sanctions Prolong the Trip Home
In ignominious fashion, the soccer team was yanked from the middle of the 1992 European championship games when the sanctions were imposed. Because of the travel and trade bans, the team almost didn’t make it home: A commercial Yugoslav airliner finally was allowed to take the players from Sweden, the site of the games. But without sufficient fuel, and with countries refusing it entry to their airspace, it crisscrossed Eastern Europe and the Balkans before finally returning to Belgrade.
The sanctions quickly took their toll. Under the weight of sanctions--combined with the government’s economic mismanagement and rampant corruption--Serbs were impoverished and their political system bankrupted.
At the start of 1995, the sports ban was eased to reward Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic for what were seen as peacemaking gestures. Today, only an “outer wall” of sanctions remains in place, denying Yugoslavia access to international lending institutions.
However, a threat of new sanctions looms again for Yugoslavia--Western powers meet next week to decide--after Milosevic unleashed a fierce police crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo. Scores of people were killed, and the West was outraged.
Although a sports ban is not likely this time, the mere thought is panicking Serbian soccer fans. Denying Yugoslavia its berth in the World Cup, just as it appeared poised for athletic glory, would be a national tragedy, many moan.
Yugoslavia’s past contribution to world soccer is indisputable. The former head coach of the American team that competed in the 1994 World Cup, Bora Milutinovic, is a native of Serbia and considered one of the best technicians around. Predrag “Preki” Radosavljevic, the player whose goal gave the United States an unprecedented 1-0 victory over world champs Brazil in February at the Los Angeles Coliseum, also hails from Yugoslavia and once played for Red Star.
Asked how he felt about being a Serb who will play against Serbs, Radosavljevic said there is nothing unusual about athletes with dual, and dueling, homelands.
“On this team we have the smallest number of native-born Americans, and the most important thing is we are not into politics but the game of football,” he told Nin.
Kralj, the Partizan goalkeeper, is the only member of the Yugoslav national team who still plays with a domestic club. The rest, along with every other player with any potential, abandoned the country as soon as they had an offer.
Under the sanctions, the selling of prime players to European, Japanese and other teams became a quick, profitable business. In the three years that sanctions kept Yugoslav teams out of international competition, 3,800 soccer players were “exported,” said Slobodan Santrac, head coach of the national team.
The long-term effect that depletion had on Yugoslav soccer, Santrac said, has been disastrous. Players left at younger and younger ages, long before they were well developed. And coaches left as well. There was no one to play against, no one to play for.
“A vacuum was created,” Santrac said in an interview at the national Soccer Assn. offices in Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital. “Young players had to shoulder heavy burdens too early. . . . Today there are no idols left in the clubs.”
Even Kralj, who at 24 says he too plans to leave for a European club this summer, is not really tested and enters the Cup as little more than a rookie. Hardly the stuff of sports legend.
Poor countries the world over have experienced a similar phenomenon, losing their best players to the wealthy foreign teams that can afford them. The difference for today’s Yugoslavia is that it no longer has a large pool from which to cultivate new players. Four of Yugoslavia’s six prewar republics have seceded, taking with them Croatian and Muslim soccer stars and potential stars. The rump Yugoslavia consists of only Serbia and Montenegro.
Declining quality also drove down public interest. Fewer and fewer people bothered to attend games, and with the country’s economic crisis, fewer and fewer people could afford tickets. In a desperate attempt to generate interest at local levels, soccer officials expanded the leagues to include more teams. Standards were lowered to field more players.
And the quality eroded further.
Paramilitary Leader Buys Soccer Club
Taking advantage of the sorry state of the sport, the notorious former paramilitary commander known as Arkan bought what had been a mediocre team, Obilic, and transformed it into the No. 1 domestic club.
Obilic, named for a Serbian warrior who killed a 14th-century Turkish sultan, surpassed traditional powers Partizan and Red Star thanks almost exclusively to what is delicately described as the “discipline” demanded by Arkan, whose real name is Zeljko Raznjatovic. He does not tolerate defeat.
“His players are not well known, but they are willing to die on the field to show themselves,” Ivan Cvetkovic, a veteran sportswriter for the state-run daily Politika, said in an interview. “Since Arkan arrived, excuses are not acceptable. They play to win, and there is no justification for defeat.”
During the war, Arkan formed and led paramilitary forces that terrorized Muslims and Croats. Wanted on international criminal warrants, he cannot accompany his team on trips outside Yugoslavia. He solidified his new soccer status a few weeks ago by graduating from coaching school, and it is believed that he will name himself coach of Obilic.
“One knows what I demand: order and discipline,” Arkan told local reporters who asked if his players fear him.
Arkan is not the only high-profile owner. With big state monopolies serving as club sponsors, Yugoslav President Milosevic, in classic pork-barrel patronage, has placed cronies at the head of teams.
Partizan and Red Star were founded after World War II by the army and the Communist Party and, as such, carry historical clout. The newer Obilic, meanwhile, benefits from Arkan’s money and zeal.
Obilic fans too are known for their dedication: At one championship match, they stormed the field and threatened to kill the referee.
This is not too surprising in the world of Balkan soccer fans. Arkan was previously head of the Red Star fan club and is said to have recruited his paramilitary fighters from its ranks.
Fans Wield Great Influence Over Teams
The fan clubs wield enormous influence and often call the shots on how their team is managed and how long a coach lasts.
As the quality of the sport deteriorated in Yugoslavia, the nastiness of the always rowdy fans grew. Game-time violence between Red Star and Partizan rivals, especially, is routine and occasionally deadly. Cheers and chants are almost uniformly obscene.
At the recent match in which Red Star defeated Partizan and goalkeeper Kralj was barraged with insults, police in riot gear, on horseback and with attack dogs surrounded the stadium and were positioned around the playing field throughout the game. Firefighters were also stationed at each end of the pitch to douse flames from the fiery smoke bombs that fans like to hurl whenever their team scores.
“A man used to be able to go to a game with his family,” Politika writer Cvetkovic said. “Now it is very unpleasant.”
The fan clubs are extremely well organized, with certain members assigned to certain tasks. There’s even a person in charge of fighting.
“We only fight with those who come [to the game] to fight like us,” said Vladimir Savija, 24, a leader of the Red Star fan club.
Red Star fans are probably the most radical, and many are simple hooligans. They take nationalistic purism to new heights: They are disdainful of Yugoslavia’s World Cup berth because the team isn’t Serbian enough. Its allegiance is to a Yugoslav flag and anthem.
In fact, the fans have a point that many in Yugoslavia would agree with. The ruling Socialist Party of onetime Communists hopes to co-opt the national team and bask in any glory it achieves, using its redemption to enhance its own sullied image. And that, fans say, would be a sham, because Yugoslavia’s economic and political troubles remain so devastating.
Or as Savija put it: “They want that team to represent an old Yugoslavia that doesn’t exist anymore.”
