Yugoslavia at Brazil 2014...

debeli

Yugoslavia were set to go into Euro 1992 as one of the favourites, but were booted out because of their off-pitch behaviour and their tendency to suffer superfluities of civic naughtiness as their country tore its own limbs off...

Denmark got their place at the tournament and made little of the opportunity...

And now we sit and watch Brazil 2014. Yugoslavia no longer exists, but what a team they might have had...

All the best of Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia.... plus those children of the post-communist diaspora: Mehmeti of Switzerland and Zlatan of Sweden amopng others.

Of course this is all conjecture and waffle.... but had the peoples of the western Balkans just managed to stay on speaking terms for another couple of decades, we could be watching quite a side in action this month. Tito must be very disappointed as he watches from the other place.

Not to mention the incidental absence of all the suffering and death that was caused by the various wars and internal conflicts of the Nineties. That would have been a bonus, too.

I ought to get out more.

RideOnTime

Debeli wrote:

Yugoslavia were set to go into Euro 1992 as one of the favourites, but were booted out because of their off-pitch behaviour and their tendency to suffer superfluities of civic naughtiness as their country tore its own limbs off...

Denmark got their place at the tournament and made little of the opportunity...

And now we sit and watch Brazil 2014. Yugoslavia no longer exists, but what a team they might have had...

All the best of Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia.... plus those children of the post-communist diaspora: Mehmeti of Switzerland and Zlatan of Sweden amopng others.

Of course this is all conjecture and waffle.... but had the peoples of the western Balkans just managed to stay on speaking terms for another couple of decades, we could be watching quite a side in action this month. Tito must be very disappointed as he watches from the other place.

Not to mention the incidental absence of all the suffering and death that was caused by the various wars and internal conflicts of the Nineties. That would have been a bonus, too.

I ought to get out more.

yes.

simonhead

Debeli wrote:

Denmark got their place at the tournament and made little of the opportunity...

Was that tongue in cheek?

DeVlaeminck

Was saying just the same thing to my daughter the other night. That team back in the 90s would have been special too - the Croatians were one of the best teams in the world back then with players like Suker, Asanovic, Stimac, Boban, Prosinecki, Boksic etc - add in the best of the rest and they'd have been as good as any team in the world. Stimac and Mihajlovic in the same defence might have been interesting.

secretsam

My understanding of the former Yugoslavia was that the reason why so many seemingly talented teams failed to make it was due to those same ethnic tensions

pblakeney

How good could Algeria be if they didn't all play for France?

cornerblock

How good could Scotland be if they weren't all Scottish?

pblakeney

Cornerblock wrote:

How good could Scotland be if they weren't all Scottish?

As far as I am aware - They are not.
Think how bad they could be.

Edit:- Past and present - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sc ... e_Scotland

We also have this collection - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_En ... de_England

I suppose you could do similar lists far every Country.