YUGOSLAVIA, SIGNS OF A SPORTS AWAKENING

Europe looks at the country with suspicious attention. And it could not be otherwise. This is a country, but above all an area, that generated the first world war and recently triggered the Balkan conflict. In the end, the goal has been reached. Yugoslavia is back in the news for its sporting merits. That is what its people want: a population proud of what its athletes can do when they don the national colours. 2001 will probably be remembered as the year zero of Yugoslav sports renaissance. An often glorious past dulled by the bloody processes of dismemberment that now rises up from its ashes and takes three wonderful continental sports titles. With great emphasis, the protagonists talk of an incredible Slam, meaning victory in all the major competitions where the country was represented. After the successes in water polo and basketball in fact has come the most recent volleyball victory. The latter was a rather burning triumph for us considering the squad headed by Nik Grbic beat the Italian team in the final. And it put an end to an incredible winning streak on the part of our national squad at world level. After the big bang at the Sydney Olympics, the heaviest legacy for the Slav colours appears that of the volleyball squad. A solid group built around Geric and the Grbic brothers, all of whom were shaped at the court of the Italian championship. A team that has withstood the greatest expectations and the pressure of those who, at all costs, after the basketball and water polo successes, wanted to achieve the prestigious threesome, for political purposes as well. “Every day we receive hundreds of phone calls – says captain Nik Grbic. Some are from influential figures asking for the third victory as a definite symbol of Yugoslav sports rebirth. For us it has not been easy to manage the situation. But champions must be champions in these things too”. Water polo and basketball have solid traditions behind them and have brought many rewards in the past. All that is missing now is the great soccer victory. Before the conflict, Stella Rossa of Belgrade had been a star team at club level for many years. The odd Milan fan will no doubt remember that without the help of the fog one Belgrade night, the fortunes of Sacchi and his world team would never even have begun. At the 2000 European Championships, Savo Milosevic fuelled national enthusiasm, ending up top scorer of the tournament but with Yugoslavia stopped in the quarter finals. Now the hope of the Yugoslav people is that the achievements of their soccer team might return to the heights achieved in 1968 when they disputed, in a double final, the continental title against the Italian team headed by Riva, but came out the losers. It is undeniable in fact that at propaganda and publicity level, not even the three European titles taken this year can bear comparison with a soccer triumph. This success will almost certainly not come at the 2002 world championships. Only a miracle could in fact see the Yugoslav squad qualify. There is only one day to go to the end of group 1 and Russia, the group leader, is well out of reach and looks with disinterest at the duel between its former great enemy in the Tito period and little Slovenia. All the latter needs now is an easy victory over the Far Oer islands to obtain a place for Korea and Japan. In other words, it seems the final piece of the puzzle needed to complete an almost perfect two-year period in terms of sports renaissance will remain out of reach; the main faults lie with a weak European-type organisation and the need for stable technical guidance (at present the team is directed by Savicevic and Boskov). There appears to be no room for complaint however for a nation that only two years ago merely hoped to start running again.