The Boston Herald has a brilliant story today on the Bosnia & Herzegovina national team in the wake of their first ever appearance in the World Cup.
The country was forged in the wake of the break-up of Yugoslavia and the three year long Bosnian War (1992-95).
One of the most incredible stories centres around Bosnia’s goalscorer against Argentina, Vedad Ibisevic. The article relates how ‘Serb soldiers killed his grandfather and burned down his father’s village.’
Panicked, his mother ‘buried him and his sister in a foxhole she had dug in the woods.’
Roughly two decades later, Ibisevic, who plays for Stuttgart, scored Bosnia’s first ever goal in a World Cup finals. ESPN’s feature writer Wright Thompson has written at length about Ibisevic. You can read thathere.
