Ivan Sršen
The summertime of 1990, for those who lived inwards what was as well as thus Yugoslavia, was something similar the summertime of 1939 inwards Europe: warm as well as easy-going, spent generally on the beach with a mutual depression temperature beer inwards hand, or—if you lot were far from whatsoever body of body of water or lake—in the shade of a tree or a tall building, comfortably cooling your feet inwards a washbowl. No i expected the abrupt break-up of that Balkan country, or at to the lowest degree non me, as well as thus an eleven-year-old boy. I was busy playing soccer on my street inwards my hometown, Zagreb, where in that location was piffling traffic inwards the warmer months. In our games of four-a-side, the doors of the driveways of my theatre as well as the theatre across the street served equally destination posts. I was the goalkeeper for the Street Team’s “Left Side,” imagining myself equally Tomislav Ivković, a Croation instrumentalist who was the goalkeeper for both the Yugoslav national squad as well as Dinamo Zagreb dorsum inwards the 1980s. Ivković lingered inwards my hear whenever I leapt to grab the onetime leather ball, frayed from the same asphalt that scraped my knees as well as elbows when I had to defend penalisation kicks taken yesteryear our neighbors opposite, after a foul or a hand-ball.
That summer, the Yugoslav squad was beaten yesteryear Argentine Republic inwards the quarter-finals of the World Cup inwards Italy, as well as Argentine Republic was, inwards turn, beaten inwards the finals yesteryear the fearsome High German squad led yesteryear Rudi Völler, Jürgen Klinsmann, as well as Lothar Matthäus. Just after Dragan Stojković, that Yugoslavia team’s cracking Serbian midfielder, missed his penalty, Ivković saved Maradona’s shot as well as became the hero of our street. The disciplined as well as cool-headed Croation goalkeeper had saved the honor of a province presently to endure no to a greater extent than yesteryear repelling a penalisation yesteryear the god of football game himself.
Many years later, I sat on our sofa inwards Zagreb with my son, right away the same historic catamenia equally I was dorsum inwards 1990, to picket Republic of Croatia play Argentine Republic inwards our 2nd check inwards the World Cup inwards Russia. Twenty-eight years have got passed since the summertime that’s stuck inwards my mind, always after, equally the halt of my innocence as well as my country’s. But suddenly, I was taking business office inwards a remake of that long-gone experience, made upwards of familiar actors: Maradona was there, inwards the VIP department of the Nizhny Novgorod Stadium, an eleven-year-old man child was sitting adjacent to me, as well as I was watching the covert inwards disbelief: “How on globe is Republic of Croatia going to describe this off?”
My boy was perplexed. “What makes you lot say that?” he asked with genuine curiosity, non aware of the fears that have got accumulated within me over the yesteryear 3 decades, as well as which meant that, from the minute Argentina’s Ángel Di María kicked off the match, this enquiry echoed inwards my head. I tried to tell myself that, inwards fact, in that location was every argue for Republic of Croatia to describe this off—we had a fantastic team, led yesteryear roughly of Europe’s best players, as well as exclusively capable of reaching the real halt of the championship. It wasn’t until the 2nd half, though, that events began to persuade me of the truth of this.
Ante Rebić, our indefatigable immature winger, took wages of an mistake yesteryear the Argentinian goalkeeper Willy Caballero to score a beautiful goal. Then Luka Modrić, Croatia’s superb captain, struck an unstoppable shot from twenty-five yards that also ended upwards inwards Caballero’s goal. Now it was possible, I felt, that the mystique of cracking Argentine Republic could endure broken. When Ivan Rakitić scored our 3rd goal, this novel realization was confirmed. Republic of Croatia was transformed, for many of us, from underdogs into favorites.
According to the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze as well as Félix Guattari, the military machine is a concept intrinsic to human society—a model for living kickoff forged yesteryear nomadic tribes, equally they sought to temporarily preserve territory or power, that many modern states, seeking absolute command of the governed, afterward turned into the raison d’être of nationhood as well as the gist of politics. Even though Croatia’s players could belike non attention less for Deleuze as well as Guattari, they mightiness handle with this theory—especially because many of them lived through the state of war as well as postwar catamenia inwards Republic of Croatia as well as Bosnia inwards the 1990s.
They, too, felt the weight of social divisions wrought yesteryear the war—the creation of novel classes, the territorial battles, the struggles for lawful as well as unlawful possession, the manipulation of the masses yesteryear propaganda. And many of them, similar today’s leading players from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, as well as Kosovo, also experienced exile, existence displaced from the villages, towns, as well as cities where they had lived inwards their early on years.
The Croation squad has 3 exceptional players who became exiles equally a straight resultant of the conflict. Luka Modrić, for half dozen seasons right away a leading midfielder at the world’s top gild over that span, Real Madrid, fled with his household unit of measurement to the Croation port town of Zadar during the heavy fighting inwards Dalmatia inwards 1991; in that location they stayed for the v years of the war’s duration, as well as that was where he began playing football. Dejan Lovren, who plays for Liverpool inwards England, was born inwards the Bosnian town of Zenica inwards 1989, but his household unit of measurement fled the state of war to settle inwards Bavaria, Germany, for vii years. Since his parents were non able to resolve their residency condition there, they eventually had to motion dorsum to Croatia, where the immature Lovren struggled at schoolhouse for a fourth dimension because his Croation was poor. Vedran Ćorluka, who’s right away with Lokomotiv Moscow, spent the kickoff half dozen years of his life inwards the Bosnian hamlet of Modran, close Derventa, inwards the share of Bosanska Posavina, an surface area that suffered heavily during the Bosnian war; as well as then, from 1992, he lived with his household unit of measurement inwards Zagreb.
As kids, these players had no social advantages, only challenges as well as obstacles, yet they made it inwards the hateful public of professional person football, where only money, physical fitness, as well as Kairos, the ancient Greeks’ god of chance as well as luck, play decisive roles. One can’t aid but suspect that it is the hardships of their youth that has enabled them to run into with such success now, as well as atomic number 82 this Croation squad to the semi-finals against England. Lovren i time said inwards an interview:
When I view the refugees from Syrian Arab Republic as well as other countries today, my kickoff reaction is that nosotros have got to give these people a chance. They deserve the form of jeopardy my parents as well as I received when nosotros left Bosnia. They don’t desire to endure business office of the war, which was caused yesteryear others, as well as the only affair they tin exercise is to run away from it.
After Croatia’s tough win against Kingdom of Denmark inwards the circular of sixteen, I traveled to Sarajevo for a literary festival co-organized yesteryear the Bosnian-American author Aleksandar Hemon, who happened to endure inwards the U.S. of A. of America when the state of war inwards Bosnia broke out inwards 1992. Hemon, whose career bears a hitting resemblance to the Polish author Witold Gombrowicz’s expatriate sense after 1939, has never returned to alive inwards his dwelling theatre country. Following the official closing of the festival on Sat evening, roughly of the writers as well as poets, Hemon alongside them, got together inwards a bar to picket Croatia’s quarter-final game against Russia. Despite the lingering burdens of war, even thus only 2 decades old, close of the bar’s regular customers joined my son, who came to the festival with me, inwards cheering for Croatia.
Together, nosotros celebrated when our incredible goalie, Danijel Subašić, saved the decisive penalty, as well as Ivan Rakitić scored the winning goal. For a brief minute at least, to me as well as maybe to all of us inwards the bar, it felt equally though the state of war was in conclusion over.
Buat lebih berguna, kongsi:
