Dzeko’s 40th birthday, Alajbegovic’s 18th: an opponent between two extremes of age
Dimarco, Pio Esposito and Vicario would have done better not to celebrate for the cameras as Bosnia qualified for the World Cup play-off final, but let’s not be hypocritical, many of us clenched our fists in celebration when young Kerim Alajbegovic scored the decisive penalty in the semi-final against Wales. In the hope that tomorrow’s result doesn’t force us into a painful retreat, we remain of the opinion that it would have been worse to have played the World Cup in Cardiff. Wales is stronger and it’s not an opinion, the Fifa ranking says so as of March 18th: Wales 35th, Bosnia 71st, with Northern Ireland, beaten by the Azzurri in the semi-final, in 69th place, two steps above the Bosnians. The “rankings” are made to be proven wrong, but 36 levels of difference, as many as there were between Wales and Bosnia before the World Cup playoffs, is a lot. In Cardiff, Italy would have found an environment as hot as the Balkan hell that awaits us tomorrow in Zenica, but as the immense Obdulio Varela told his teammates before Brazil-Uruguay, the final act of the 1950 World Cup, “los de afueras son de palo”, those out there, the fans, don’t play. Captain Varela’s Uruguay won 2-1 and the 200 thousand of the Maracanã fell into despair.
