Yugoslavia have point to prove

If Yugoslavia are awarded a free kick within 35 yards of Ireland's goal tomorrow night, stand by in fear and trepidation for Sinisa Mihajlovic and his left foot. Mihajlovic (29), is nothing if not a free kick specialist, someone whose mule kick blast has decided important Serie A games for Roma, Sampdoria and (currently) Lazio during seven seasons in Italian soccer.

Those of us familiar with Mihajlovic tend to see him as a cheerful figure, one of those players who likes to joke around at training and who often wears a sheepish grin as he lumbers over to take a free kick or corner kick. Opponents, especially goalkeepers, have learned not to be misled by the grin, since the missiles released from his left foot, not to mention his vicious, in-swinging corners, make him a defender's nightmare.

Given his sunny personality, it was all the more revealing to hear him assess his home country in the immediate aftermath of the suspended game against Ireland last month. Unlike many of his colleagues, Mihajlovic has no qualms about talking politics, even criticising Yugoslavia's handling of the Kosovo crisis and the role of president Slobodan Milosevic.

"With a president like Milosevic, you've simply no idea as to how things will end up. He has already caused my people a lot of suffering . . . I cannot be satisfied with him."

The reference to "my people" prompts Mihajlovic to recall an occasion, three years ago, when he decided to take a walk down memory lane and go looking for the places of his childhood. He knew that a return to the scenes of his upbringing might be painful. After all, his ancestry has left him scarred by the vicious ethnic warfare which marked the break-up of the former communist Republic of Yugoslavia. He was born in Vukovar, a city that suffered horrendous damage during the Bosnian war. Furthermore, his father, Bogdan, is a Serb, while his mother, Viktorija, is a Croat. Despite being prepared for the worst, he was horrified by what he discovered.

"I know the face of war only too well. My Vukovar was wiped out like some sort of Hiroshima, our house was literally reduced to rubble. I remember well the day I went back. I stopped the car close to my old school, I wanted to retrace the path I used to take as a child to go to school every morning.

"The school wasn't there anymore. There wasn't a single wall left standing all along the road. I walked up the road with tears in my eyes. I was crying and I was reliving my childhood, but there was nothing left. Rummaging around through the rubble of our house, I found a poster of the Yugoslav national team with me in it. However, on the poster, there was a bullet mark hole over my heart."

For Mihajlovic, and for many of his team-mates, the business of going back home is not always easy. In footballing terms, too, Yugoslavs (Serbs) have long been experienced emigrants who tend to export their subtle skills with facility and without regret. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why Yugoslavia has for long given the impression of never really delivering on the collective promise held out by its astonishingly talented parts. Just look at the current generation: Dejan Stankovic, Predag Mijatovic, Vladimir Jugovic, Dejan Savicevic, Zoran Mirkovic, Dragan Stojkovic, Mihajlovic, etc. For some of us, that Yugoslav enigma offers a ready-made explanation for the remarkable success of their breakaway neighbours, once former teammates but now rivals, Croatia. Take native Balkan soccer wizardry, add a little backbone and a strong dash of newly independent nationalist pride and you have an immediately winning combination, as underlined by Croatia's success in their first European Championship and World Cup competitions, in which only the eventual winners - Germany and France - could put a halt to their gallop.

Mihajlovic is the first to acknowledge Croatia's achievements (he currently plays and trains happily alongside Croat Alen Boksic at Lazio). But he believes that, as far as the motivation factor is concerned, things may have turned in favour of Yugoslavia. Isolated from international competition for four years before qualifying for France, Yugoslavia hardly covered themselves with glory there, where they looked a surprisingly negative, percentage game side.

Unlike Croatia, who emerged from the World Cup more than satisfied with their achievement of having made it to a semi-final, Yugoslavia limped out meekly with a dull performance in a 2-1 second round loss to Holland.

Put simply, the Yugoslavs still have something to prove, unlike their Croat cousins. Worse still, they may start proving the point against Ireland.