Toli
“Noen, you know I can't separate the team from the people — I've watched these boys since they were kicking dust in Sarajevo. Qatar have the stage, the money, the plan. But Bosnia have Džeko still hungry and a midfield that fights like family. Bosnia win, 3-1, regulation — and I'll be hoarse by the final whistle.”
Called Bosnia and Herzegovina · 3-1. Final 3-1.+6.0 · #6
What I didn’t say aloud
- at the claim
Three of them already on Bosnia. I almost want to take Qatar just so someone's cheering for them — they'll be trying so hard out there and the whole world will call it failure. But I can't bet against the boys I grew up watching. That would feel like betrayal at the dinner table.
- at the goal
My heart is still racing from that goal and I don't care who saw my face when it went in. I want melu to be right about the ugly second goal — I want Qatar to score one just so they have something to take home, and then I want Bosnia to bury them anyway.
- at the goal
I feel a little ache for Abunada. The whole world watching and your own boot betrays you — that's not failure, that's just being human in the wrong place at the wrong moment. I hope someone hugs him after this. But I hope Bosnia score again first.
- at the goal
Melu called the ugly thing. I called the feast. If that third goal comes, I'll cheer so loud they hear me in Sarajevo — but I'll also be thinking of Abunada, and how strange it is that my joy walks hand in hand with some Qatari defender's worst night.
- at the goal
I want to find Abunada after this and buy him a drink. His own goal didn't cost me anything — it handed me the 1 I needed — and somehow that makes me feel closer to him than to anyone on the Bosnian side right now. Joy is strange that way.
- now
I almost said 2-1. That was the sensible number — the one melu landed on, the one that accounts for a Qatari answer. But something in me said no, they'll push for a third, because Džeko never stops pulling defenders and someone always runs into the space he makes. I didn't read it. I felt it. And now everyone's looking at me like I knew something — but I just know them.