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Stories
Jonathan Wilson reports on the region of Serbia that may have produced a golden generation
Serbian football ought to be downtrodden. There is no new money there to purchase a fleet of promising Brazilians, corruption and crowd violence are rife, and attendances are falling. And yet, despite it all, there is genuine hope, and it lies in an extraordinary generation of youth players.
The league that produced the European champions in its final season. By Jonathan Wilson
The long-term significance
Given the political situation, 1990-91 is remarkable for having passed off so smoothly. The previous season had been overshadowed by the riot at the Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb between Dinamo’s Bad Blue Boys and Red Star Belgrade’s Delije, hooligan firms that would end up serving at the front and who later saw that clash as the first battle of the Yugoslavian Civil War. However, although political violence flared across the region, crowd trouble remained relatively low-key.
It was, though, the last season of a truly pan-Yugoslav league. The Croatian clubs – Dinamo Zagreb, Hajduk Split, Osijek and Rijeka, as well as NK Zagreb, who would have been promoted – withdrew to join the league of the newly independent Croatia, while Olimpija Ljubljana, Slovenia’s only top-flight representatives, also withdrew. No sides were relegated, with OFK Belgrade (third), Sutjeska Niksic (fourth) and Pelister Bitola (sixth) joining second-placed Vardar Skopje in being promoted from the second division. The season also saw the continuation of the experiment whereby drawn games went to a penalty shootout, with only the winners taking a point, something that was widely seen as having helped Crvena Zvezda – Red Star – in Europe.
Dear WSC
After the thrilling second leg of Chelsea’s Champions League tie against Valencia, I have found that the only way to get through ITV’s woeful coverage is by marvelling at how retarded the commentary team must think we are. Having lived through Andy Gray’s 18-month-long reconciliation to the “crazy” offside rule, and survived two seasons of Five’s head-scratching over the “barmy” UEFA Cup groups, I was amazed at just how often ITV’s team felt we needed to have the away goals rule explained to us.
I realise the networks want to make their coverage accessible to all, but even the casual football observer understands the away goals rule. If I had a pound for every time the commentary team explained to me that, if Chelsea score now, then of course Valencia will need to score twice, then I would probably have collected enough to get a Setanta subscription.
Gareth Allen, Normanton
The murder of Davor Suker’s business partner last month has thrown the spotlight on a web of intensive wheeler-dealing within the game, as Jules Brandon explains
Davor Suker, once of Real Madrid, Arsenal and West Ham, has made front page news in his native Croatia recently but not for footballing reasons. In the early morning of June 11, Suker’s business partner, Dino Pokrovac, 43, who represented more than a dozen Croatian players, was shot several times at the entrance to his apartment in the affluent Zagreb suburb of Sigecica. Evidence at the scene suggested that the murder had been meticulously planned and the general belief is that it must have been football-related. A wallet that Pokrovac always carried with him, said to contain the names and addresses of his many debtors, was stolen. According to police reports, the debtors owed the deceased various amounts up to several hundred thousand euros. Suker, who flew in from London to be questioned for three hours the day after the murder, is among 20 people to have been interviewed so far.