Bosnian soccer club plays for more than the game

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(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-12-07 08:49

TABANCI, Bosnia, Dec 6 - Like every coach, Jusuf "Jufi" Malagic of FC Guber Srebrenica gathers his players on the pitch before each game for a short pep talk, asking them to do their best for victory.

"Even if we don't win, it is important to show that we fight as one," Malagic said before a recent basement league derby against FC Tabanci in the east of Bosnia's Serb Republic.

No other Bosnian team depends more on unity. Guber has a multi-ethnic line-up and is based in Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serb forces massacred 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in July 1995.

It is still viewed with suspicion by some in the town, which had a Muslim majority before the 1992-95 war but was included in the Serb half of Bosnia in the Dayton peace deal that ended it.

Guber's players -- Muslims, Serbs and one Croat, aged between 16 and 39 -- are usually greeted with a torrent of nationalistic abuse when they play all-Serb teams.

Guber lost 2-1 to Tabanci on that rainy Sunday but Malagic's amateurs did not let him down. Despite missing their two best players, they fought to the end after going two goals down.

"It's okay boys, we did our best. It'll be better next time," Malagic told his players as they left the muddy pitch.

The coach, a Bosnian Muslim and Guber's goalkeeper for 18 years before the war, had the idea of reviving the local club in early 2004. He was one of many refugees returning to a home town once prosperous, now poor and grim.

Guber's pitch had become a field, dressing rooms and stands were in ruins. The town had a multi-ethnic government but most Muslims and Serbs tended to stay with their own people.

"They told me others had tried to do this but failed," said Malagic, 54. He was not discouraged and issued a public call for children to train with him. "About 150 of them turned up, the problem was I had only two footballs," he said.

STAND AS ONE

A few months later he organised a week-long soccer school with the help of a foreign NGO. That got him equipment and helped him to find young recruits for his team.

Teenage players now make up half the squad. The others are veterans like Miloje Petrovic, a 32-year-old shaven-headed right back, who has lived in a neighbouring Serb town since the war and played for the local team there.

Petrovic did not think twice about moving to Guber, he said, breaking off to tell jokes to his teammates in a noisy bus on their way to the match.

"First, I'm from Srebrenica and plan to return to live here," he said. "Also I knew Jufi and I knew this was going to work. And it does because we have a fantastic atmosphere here."

Players say they never discuss politics or the past but sometimes jokingly call each other "Vlasi" or "Balije", pejorative names for Serbs and Muslims respectively.

But when the going gets tough at hostile grounds, where Serb players get an even share of insults and threats for being "traitors", Guber players stand together.

"We are friends not just when we play, we go out for a drink or visit each other's homes," said veteran goalkeeper Stojan Milinkovic, an ethnic Serb and one of five members of the extended Milinkovic family in the squad.

His protege is 19-year-old left-back Emir Jasarevic, an ethnic Muslim, who says Guber's main problem is the referees. "They're always against us regardless of where we play," said Jasarevic."This team is different and they can't stand it."

Malagic said 20,000 Bosnian marka ($13,000) provided annually by the town and donations from foreign clubs leave Guber in a better position than other clubs.

"But we need to be twice as good on the pitch to win this league because of the unfavourable treatment we get," he said.

His team ended the first part of the 2006-07 campaign fourth in their league, trailing the leaders by eight points.

"Of course, just by playing together we have achieved something," he said. "But this is sport and we are here for the result. That means we must reach a higher level which would prove to all that we are doing the right thing."