Theguardian

Almost 50,000 people gathered on the streets of Sarajevo in October 2013 to welcome their national football team in what was the biggest sporting parade in the country’s history. Bosnia-Herzegovina had secured their first ever appearance in a major tournament – at the 2014 World Cup – and the nation had been spun into delirium.
When the national coach, Safet Susic, stepped out on to a balcony with his fists in the air, the masses went wild.
That night Susic became a national hero. But 13 months later, having seen his Bosnia-Herzegovina side smashed 3-0 by Israel in Haifa on Sunday, he was not far off being the most hated figure in the country and his sacking has been celebrated by fans everywhere.
So what went wrong for Susic and Bosnia-Herzegovina?
Just over a year ago the Dragons – as the Bosnians are nicknamed back home – were a hugely admired team and their qualification for the World Cup was celebrated as one of the most romantic stories of football history. Less than 20 years after a bloody war had destroyed the country and turned it into one of the poorest in Europe, its football team had written a fairytale.
The men from Bosnia-Herzegovina had also won hearts with their attacking approach, topping their World Cup qualifying group with an impressive tally of 30 goals ahead of Greece and Slovakia, and losing only once in 10 matches. Edin Dzeko and Vedad Ibisevic were lethal up front while Zvjezdan Misimovic and Miralem Pjanic gave Susic’s team a certain magic in midfield.
“We have to play attacking football,” said the coach. “It would be unfair to the fans, to the game and to us if we were to suppress such talent.”
Expectations were high enough for some to think that Bosnia might progress past the group stage at the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil.
But while the results were creditable on paper – close defeats to Argentina (2-1) and Nigeria (1-0) followed by victory over Iran (3-1) – the team’s sojourn in the tournament was short-lived and the fans had already begun to see plenty of things they did not like. There were strange decisions and tactical naivety at the helm and Susic had quickly begun to lose contact with reality. Just as swiftly he had also begun to forget that the road from hero to zero is nowhere as short as it is in the Balkans.
Among Susic’s first mistakes had been a decision to include his nephew, Tino-Sven, in the World Cup squad, refusing to explain his reasoning but joking that it was “because of his last name”.
Then there had been his alleged links with various footballing agents – including his brother Sead – which his critics had put forward as a possible reason for some of his more questionable call-ups of certain players.
But the turning point was the World Cup defeat by Nigeria in Cuiaba, where his tactical set-up, poor preparation and failure to react to the pattern of the game offered Bosnia up to the opposition on a silver platter and cost the team a place in the last 16. The match underlined and exposed all of Susic’s flaws; things were just not functioning as before.
Despite the concerns Susic was handed a lucrative new contract after the World Cup. Bosnia responded with a 2-1 defeat by Cyprus in Zenica in their first European Championship qualification match and Susic publicly blamed his players for the defeat.
A goalless draw against Wales in Cardiff and a 1-1 draw at home to Belgium brought Susic two points but not the positive atmosphere and stability he had craved.
Missing six players from his usual list, including Dzeko and Ibisevic, he was then forced to improvise in the next match against Israel in Haifa but, instead of looking for alternatives up front, made a delusional decision not to call on any strikers at all.
Worse still, Susic declared that “now that we have lost Dzeko, we must admit that we have no chance to win in Israel and that we would be satisfied with
a point” – a stance that outraged both the Bosnian public and, by all accounts, his team.
After defeat at the hands of Israel on Sunday, Susic said, “I do not feel responsible for this loss” and dismissed any notion of resignation. But those were his last words in charge: that afternoon he was relived of all duties. Now Bosnia must hope to get to the European Championship with another man and Susic, once the most successful coach in the country’s history, is left to figure out how he made such a mess of such a promising situation.