Anthem?

YUGOSLAVIA Fudbalski Savez Jugoslavije 35, Terzije, PO Box 263 11000 Beograd Official Website (English available)

I just hope they'll play offensively - as opposed to the tedium of the way they played in the WC.

SQUAD

Goalkeepers Ivica Kralj Zeljko Cicovic Aleksandar Kocic

Defenders Ivan Dudic Slobodan Komljenovic Miroslav Djukic Sinisa Mihajlovic Nisa Saveljic Goran Bunjevcevic Goran Djorovic

Midfielders Slavisa Jokanovic Vladimir Jugovic Albert Nadj Dejan Stankovic Jovan Stankovic Ljubinko Drulovic Dragan Stojkovic Dejan Govedarica

Strikers Predrag Mijatovic Savo Milosevic Darko Kovacevic Mateja Kezman

GROUP MATCHES
Charleroi 13.6.2000 (20.45) Yugoslavia v Slovenia 3-3	Liege 18.6.2000 (20.45) Yugoslavia v Norway 1-0	Bruges 21.6.2000 (18.00) Yugoslavia v Spain 3-4

YUGOSLAVIA QUALIFY FOR THE QUARTER FINALS (lose 1-6 to Holland)

EURO 2000 TEAM STATISTICS
Team Stats
Games Played:	4
Red Cards :	2
Yellow Cards :	10
Shots On Target :	23
Shots Off Target :	15
Fouls Committed :	69
Fouled :	70
Corners Won :	14
Corners Against :	4

Player Stats
Goalkeepers
Player		Minutes Played	Goals Conceded	Clean Sheets	Shots Saved	Penalties Saved	Shootout Saves	Shootout Goals Conceded
1	Milorad Korac	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
12	Zeljko Cicovic	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
22	Ivica Kralj	360	13	1	20	0	0	0

Outfield
Player		Minutes Played	Goals Scored	Assists	Red Cards	Yellow Cards	Shots on Target	Shots off Target	Fouls Committed	Fouls Against
2	Ivan Dudic	90	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	3
3	Goran Djorovic	102	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	1
4	Slavisa Jokanovic	269	0	0	1	2	1	2	14	2
5	Miroslav Djukic	360	0	1	0	0	0	0	6	5
6	Dejan Stankovic	74	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1
7	Vladimir Jugovic	316	0	0	0	1	2	1	9	4
8	Predrag Mjatovic	349	0	2	0	0	5	1	2	17
9	Savo Milosevic	308	5	0	0	0	3	1	4	11
10	Dragan Stojkovic	269	0	0	0	1	1	3	5	9
11	Sinisa Mihailovic	240	0	0	1	1	3	2	7	2
13	Slobodan Komljenovic	270	1	0	0	1	1	0	6	2
14	Nisa Saveljic	166	0	0	0	1	0	1	3	0
15	Goran Bunjevcevic	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
16	Dejan Govedarica	135	1	1	0	0	1	0	0	2
17	Ljubinko Drulovic	340	1	4	0	1	2	3	2	3
18	Darko Kovacevic	72	0	0	0	0	2	0	1	1
19	Jovan Stankovic	113	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	2
20	Mateja Kezman	10	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	2
21	Albert Nadj	96	0	0	0	1	2	0	3	2

Yugoslavia's preparations for the quarter-final against Holland yesterday were hampered by a security scare that kept them from their beauty sleep until the small hours of Saturday morning.
A car with five men, allegedly masked and brandishing guns, was seen in the hotel car park at around 10pm. Within five minutes, ten heavily armed anti-terrorist vehicles had arrived and Vujadin Boskov's squad were banished to the top floor of the building, where they remained for two hours.

Members of the Yugoslav party, perhaps predictably, blamed Croats based in Belgium, while local police decided that the incident involved "children playing with a toy weapon".

Yugoslavia face meltdown


Mateja Kezman could be the next to leave Yugoslavia on the cheap. Picture: Reuters


Sunday 25th June 2000


Dragan Stojkovic, Predrag Mijatovic and Sinisa Mihajlovic epitomise the Yugoslav tradition of top-class, technically accomplished players. But Red Star Belgrade coach Slavoljub Muslin is convinced that their achievements this summer in the Low Countries have papered over the problems facing his country’s game. The biggest of these is the stream of precociously gifted youngsters draining out of the country's domestic football – with little sign of financial rewards for the clubs who have nurtured their talents since childhood. Of the present national squad, only Red Star defender Goran Bunjevcevic, Partizan forward Mateja Kezman, reserve stopper Ivan Dudic and 31-year-old Red Star goalkeeper Aleksander Kocic played in Yugoslavia last season. But if they make their clubs a healthy profit in the European transfer market off the back of Euro 2000, they will be very much the exception. The weakness of Yugoslavia’s football infrastructure means the country has become fertile ground for foreign clubs looking to buy youth stars on the cheap, according to Muslin. He said: "Here, we do not invest enough. We have to sell our most talented players in order to meet expenses. There isn’t any income from ticket sales, television rights or sponsorship deals. "At Red Star we have to sell young players for a price far below their actual value and as they are still young, the money we receive does not compensate for what we invested in them. "Turkey have invested a lot of money in football. They are a talented footballing nation so, naturally, we are now seeing the result. First through Galatasaray in the Uefa Cup and now through their national team." The knock-on effect for Yugoslav clubs already struggling under EU sanctions is, according to Muslin, further decline. "It is an absurdity of our football," he said. "At the moment you should expect the most from a player, to start proving himself worthy of what was invested in him, he is sold. Since he has no experience and never got to play for the national team, he is let go for under his real value." Now, with Stojkovic about to take his international leave and fellow 30-somethings Mihajlovic, Drulovic and Mijatovic not far behind, Muslin fears that the Yugoslavia team are entering a new era they are ill-equipped to cope with. "We should not forget that this generation of Yugoslav players are nearing the end of their careers," he said. "We can be very satisfied with what they have achieved, but I can’t see us going much further. "We do have talented young players, but they lack international experience, which is very important. "Eighty per cent of the players in our national squad will not play again [for Yugoslavia] and we will go into the World Cup qualifiers with a team that has no experience. "I just hope that we won't find the transition from experience to youth too difficult to overcome after Euro 2000." The country that produced the outstanding likes of Bora Kostic and Dragan Dzajic has not stopped unearthing fine young footballers. However, with most of the football world giving Yugoslavia a wide berth after the Kosovo conflict and the national economy in ruins, developing that talent has become ever harder. "We have a brilliant Under-21 team that has achieved nothing," admitted Muslin. "To be honest, it’s a lousy job, whether you are coaching youngsters or veterans. We do not have the best conditions under which to work, given the sanctions in Yugoslavia. "Our mistake is that we do not show more confidence in our young players. A fine example would be Ronaldo, who went to the World Cup in 1994, experience that helped him become the best player in the world." Yugoslavia have a fine pedigree in European Championships, twice reaching the final in the 1960s and contesting an epic semi-final with Germany in 1976 which they lost 4-2 after extra-time. Having reached the World Cup quarter-finals in 1990, where they were unlucky to lose on penalties to an ultra-defensive Argentina, Vujadin Boskov’s men have now made a partial recovery from the troubles that rocked the country in the early Nineties. Stripped of the Croats, Slovenes and Bosnians, who provided some of the federation’s first-team squad, they reached the knockout stage of the 1998 World Cup despite being banned from the previous three international tournaments – proving that overcoming the odds has become a Yugoslav national trait. Muslin added: "When everybody is against us, we are normally able to prove people wrong. Anything can happen. We do have some of the best players in Europe." Beyond Euro 2000, though, such confidence in the state of Yugoslav football is difficult to sustain. And that 6-1 humbling by Holland was hardly the ideal way to usher in the new era. (onefootball)

24th June

Yugoslavia fight hard to make up for war years

FROM GEORGE CAULKIN IN AMSTERDAM (The Times)

IT was a fitting backdrop for the tournament dark horses; a Gothic display of semi-light, with velvet curtains, wooden beams and old master reproductions looming from the walls. After the internecine conflicts, the bitterness, the self-justification, it was if the Yugoslavians were closing ranks further with their choice of hotels, shielding themselves from further interrogation. "Let's play football," read the slogan above the press conference podium yesterday.
To a considerable degree, they have succeeded at it, providing Euro 2000 with two of its best games, the 3-3 draw with Slovenia and the 4-3 defeat by Spain. The excitement has been matched by their formidable technique, yet still the questions flow. Why have three Yugoslavia players been sent off, why have Serbian flags been removed from the stadiums, what do they say to the accusation of dirty tricks? Do they feel like pariahs?

Vujadin Boskov, the national head coach, earned a smattering of applause when he fielded one pointed inquiry. "We're all sportsmen here," the 69-year-old said. "We have a football culture and education and we're not interested in politics." They cannot help but feel unloved; they have already reserved provisional places on a flight home from Brussels in two days' time.

Which is not to say that Boskov's team are resigned to defeat in the quarter-final tomorrow. In response to Dennis Bergkamp's reported gibe that Holland could afford to give Yugoslavia a five-goal start, Boskov, the wily former coach of Feyenoord, Real Madrid and Sampdoria, said: "Then we will give them six. They have good players, but ours are better."

Until now, Yugoslavia have had little chance to prove it. The past decade has seen the country suffer economic and sporting sanctions, imposed by the United Nations as a consequence of the civil war in the Balkans. In football terms, it has been the equivalent of the European ban imposed on English clubs after the Heysel tragedy in 1985.

Yugoslavia were prevented from taking part in Euro 92 shortly before the tournament began - replaced by Denmark, the eventual winners - and they were withdrawn from the World Cup in 1994 and European championship two years later. They returned to the international fold in time for France 1998, but even their qualifying campaign for Belgium and The Netherlands was disrupted by Nato airstrikes and postponed matches. Their last game was a 2-2 draw in, of all places, Croatia.

"We have had ten years when Yugoslavia has had a lot of political problems," Dragan Stojkovic, the team's playmaker, said. "It was a terrible time for my country and my team, but hopefully that's behind us now. As players, we lost a lot. We missed out on three major competitions. We have been given a chance to make up for it and we have done well. It's a great feeling to be here."

If there is a defiance to their play, it is understandable. "I don't like to mix politics and sport," Savo Milosevic, the former Aston Villa striker, said, "but it's important for us to prove that we're normal people like anybody else and that we can play football like anybody else. We're trying hard to convince people."

The 12 yellow and three red cards shown to Yugoslavia players so far - one, to Mateja Kezman, after he had been on the field against Norway for less than a minute - has tended to overshadow some of that, but beneath the veneer of gamesmanship, their passing has been electric, their movement positive and the goals have flowed.

With four to his name already, Milosevic has been a key performer, probably to the chagrin of Villa Park regulars, who remember a talented player prone to extravagant errors. For Yugoslavia, however, he has scored in every other game and moving to Real Zaragoza has taught him the virtues of patience.

"Savo is an intelligent guy and a good player," Stojkovic said. "Playing in England helped him, even though it was a tough experience for him. He has changed his style; he plays with more simplicity, without complications, for the coach and the team. He can win the Golden Boot. England was frustrating and he didn't do well, but in Spain he has shown what he can do."

There may, of course, be a reason for that. While Boskov voiced surprise that England and Germany had left the tournament so early, he spoke of the "closed-mind syndrome" that hampers their domestic football, where there are "plenty of foreign footballers, but at a coaching level they're not open to outside influences".

There is a different explanation for Yugoslavia's attitude of "no one likes us, we don't care", but at least they can say they have adapted.

YUGOSLAVIA ; Is it any wonder that coaches of Yugoslav players all over the world go prematurely gray, demented or both? For a country that produces some of the most technically gifted and skillful players on the planet why is it that they are so maddeningly inconsistent in team play? They just did not show up for a full sixty minutes, then ran riot when given the opening by an inexperienced team losing its nerve. Add to that laziness the indiscipline and idiocy demonstrated by Mihajlovic, their Lazio based talisman, and you get a picture of rampant unpredictability. Watch them go out and thrash Spain and play 0-0 with Norway !! (Seamus Malin, www.fuxito.com)