Can Bosnia & Herzegovina take the World Cup by storm?

Bosnia & Herzegovina are the only debutants of this year’s FIFA World Cup. For a country ravaged by the Bosnian War(1992-95) which killed about 100,000 people and displaced more than 2.2 million people, the country still faces political instability and tensions between its ethnic communities and have not yet recovered from the dark past. But football is the unifying force of this Eastern European country and the whole country is in exhilarating mood as their footballers take on the big guns at the biggest stage after suffering from a series of near misses in the past.

They came very close to qualify for the Euro 2004 but were eliminated in their last game. Similarly they missed the flight to the 2006 World Cup narrowly. There were more heartbreak as the team lost to Portugal in play-offs for both 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012. But Bosnia made sure there were no further heartbreaks as they qualified for their maiden World Cup by winning their qualifying group ahead of Greece. 

But people would b mistaken if they think that Bosnia & Herzegovina are in the World Cup only to add the numbers. Indeed their brilliant attacking game has earned them fans everywhere around the world. Such is their penchant for attack that they plundered 30 goals in their 10 qualifying matches with the deadly front two of Edin Dzeko and Vedad Ibisevic scoring 18 goals between themselves.

And the strikers are not the only strength of the Bosnian team. Their midfield consists of Miralem Pjanic who electrified the Serie A this season with some brilliant performances for AS Roma, the consistent Senad Lulic of Lazio and the veteran Zvjezdan Misimovic who scored 5 goals in the qualifying campaign. Every year their supporters moan that their suspectful defence is the main cause of worry but they conceded only 6 goals in the qualifying campaign. In the goal they have Stoke City’s Asmir Begovic who has cemented his place as one of the best goalkeepers in the English Premier League.

So with one of the world’s most fearsome strikeforce and a solid midfield, Bosnia should qualify for the 2nd round along with Argentina ahead of Nigeria and Iran and provided how their players perform at the big stage, they might even surprise some of the traditional big guns.