The second half of the qualifying match between the football teams of Serbia and Latvia, played on Sunday evening, was interesting and exciting, and it ended happily in favor of the home team, since in those 45 minutes, with a self-sacrificing and team play, they overturned the result and registered a victory, the first with the new coach Veljko Panović on the bench. At the same time, everything was depressing, if you scratch just a little under this basic information: from the undeniable fact that in a game without competitive significance a team of modest potential and results was barely defeated, to the final confirmation that we failed ingloriously in the World Cup qualifiers, and to the harsh fact that the national team is one of the captive institutions in the country, which, among other things, is reflected in the forced exile from the capital by order of the president of the country and playing in controlled conditions small stadium in Leskovac.
DISLIKELY, MORE gloomier
It was expected that the search for Pixie's successor would be long. Namely, the collapse of the senior national team in the qualifiers only added to the gloomy picture of our football. The elite domestic league is among the weakest in Europe, by all parameters, with many controversial figures in the administrations and federal bodies, especially from the second rank down, and the Football Association is filled from the top to the municipal level with progressive staff, mostly unprofessional and incompetent, and in addition, all important decisions are controlled and approved by the president of the state. Then, the best clubs, starting with the state project under the management of Zvezdan Terzić, are not competitive in any other European league, and the vast majority of clubs barely survive and their bare survival depends on local political powers and, mostly, dubious investors.
In such an environment, the coaching profession also collapsed, which is best evidenced by the fact that Serbian coaches are not only absent from the five strongest European leagues (the so-called top five leagues) - English, Italian, Spanish, German and French, but also disappeared from another group of elite leagues in Europe: Dutch, Portuguese, Belgian, Turkish and Czech. Football referees are also poorly rated on the international scene, which is also not surprising given the corrupt and criminal environment in which they grow up and survive. And finally, the number of our players in the biggest European clubs and in the already mentioned top ten leagues is falling. The constant outflow of players abroad has increased, talents leave en masse at a minor age, and en masse also fail under the pressure of life abroad and various brokers, which can be seen by the numerous failures of younger national teams in the last decade, from the greatest success in the history of our football, winning the world youth title in 2015 in New Zealand, until today.
DUTY AND MUD
So we come again to Veljko Paunović, the coach of that "golden generation", whom FSS easily gave up and did not even give him an indication that he could take over the senior selection. Ten years later, after the embarrassing defeats by England and Albania and the crash in the qualifiers, Paunović, as the most qualified Serbian coach at the moment, became a saving solution for the Association, and for the one who, from his powerful state position, interferes in everything, including player, coaching and personnel decisions in football.
And then on the last day of October, from Spain, an (un)expected confirmation arrived: Veljko Paunović accepted the FSS offer and will lead the Serbian national team in the two remaining qualifying matches, and it is expected that he will then sign a multi-year commitment.
"What did he need", was the most common comment under the news about Paunović's decision, and the others were in a similar tone - "He didn't need it, he will compromise himself", "It's a shame, he will end his career young and promising", "Badava took a stupid job", "Well, Veljko, they screwed you"...
Indeed, there are a number of reasons why it is not desirable to enter the Serbian "football mire", but Paunović nevertheless accepted a difficult task. As he explained, "it was his duty to answer the call as quickly as possible and make himself available to the national team", aware that he had a "difficult task", but also that "there is a group of guys who know how to win", thinking above all of his "youngsters", those with whom he climbed to the top of the world and who now form the backbone of the best selection.
A PROMISING BIOGRAPHY
As we have already mentioned, Paunović is, according to the majority opinion of the professional and fan public, the most logical and most desirable solution for the selection position: until recently, he was the only Serbian coach in the "five leagues" - last summer he introduced Real Oviedo to the highest Spanish rank, and before that he had an enviable coaching career in the United States of America, England and Mexico, and what is probably the most important, since winning the Youth World Cup in 2015, he has the status of a national hero who has not violated, first of all because he did not get the opportunity to lead the "A" national team, and because he built his club coaching career far away from Serbia.
In addition, he is the son of Blagoj Paunović (1947–2014), a legend of Partizan and a member of the Yugoslav national team, and his playing career was respectable: he grew up in the younger selections of Partizan, but he also built his career as a footballer abroad - in Spain, where he left before reaching adulthood. In 2012, FSS hired him to lead the Serbian under-18 national team, the following year he took over the U19 squad, and in 2014 and 2015 he worked with the youth (U20) and won the 2015 World Championship with them. As they did not keep him in FSS, he left for America and led Chicago for four seasons, and then spent a year and a half on the bench of English Reading and almost took it from the Championship to the Premier League. Before coming to Real Oviedo at the beginning of this year, he worked for two years in the Mexican clubs Guadalajara and Tigres.
ADVANTAGES OF ARRIVING ON Scorched Earth
There are numerous problems that burden football in Serbia and they, unfortunately, dominate the rare positive events and examples, and we will also add that the failure in the qualifications left the FSS coffers without at least eight million euros. Those incomes from placing in the World Cup, EURO and in the elite group of the League of Nations, and for the coach Pixi Stojković, were a solid satisfaction for the unsuccessful performances in Qatar and Germany.
But, believe it or not, there is something that Paunović can do well. It has already been said that the new selector enjoys a great deal of support from the football public because he has a famous football name and is a proven good coach. It is significant that he filled the coaching staff mainly with foreigners, mostly Spaniards, and this is a solid guarantee that he will seriously work on building a better and more efficient system. In order to succeed in that business, Paunović and his team need free hands and long-term support, and paradoxically, the "scorched earth" they are arriving at gives them the opportunity to work for a while without pressure and subterfuge. It is easily inferred from the information provided by the journalists that "Paunović could receive wider powers within the sports sector", which in translation means that he will not have any interference in the Association nor will he be undermined by Zvezdan Terzić and other powerful people, and probably not even the most powerful man in the country will "pop" him. Also, until the next fall and the first game in the League of Nations, the national team will not have competitive games and there will be time to temper a new setup and regain the trust of the fans through friendly matches.
The failure of the national team and the current desperate state of Serbian football are nothing new for some chroniclers: it was similar at the beginning of 2021, when Slaviša Kokeza literally ran away from the post of president of the FSS, under the accusations of his progressive comrades that he disfigured Serbian football, but also stole the country through smuggling and prepared the liquidation of the president. After the failure in the qualifications for the European Championship and the beheading of the Federation, Dragan Stojković came to the "scorched earth", took advantage of the "empty space" and in a short period of time achieved good results and placements. Unfortunately, after qualifying for the World Championship in Qatar, "his wings were clipped", and then he fell down and left in the end humiliated and humiliated.
Paunović did not have a great start - Serbia was defeated by England in London (0:2) and defeated Latvia in Leskovac (2:1) with great difficulty, but, nevertheless, it was not humiliated at Wembley, as it was by the same rival at the beginning of September in Belgrade (0:5), and in the second part of the game against the Latvians, it resembled the team and regained some of the shine that had disappeared in the last two years.
He has a really difficult and thankless task ahead of him, and the many who asked: "What did he need?" will be right. and they told him that he accepted a "bad job", but, just as hundreds of thousands of citizens have been taking to the streets for a year now in the belief that "Ćaciland" will prevail in peace and in the elections, we should also look at Paunović's belief that he and his team will overcome "football Ćaciland".
