Defeat - I want to continue - is an integral part of sports... Blah, blah, truć. Well, it's not, defeat is a matter of dignity. Whoever loses as a human being is on the way to believing in the final victory of good over evil, regardless of all life experience. He just believes. I was lucky that the first basketball game in my life was the defeat of Partizan against Zadar in the Hall of Sports, when the young Divac got five points and cried next to the scorer's table. I'm lucky even to this day when people talk about the defeat against Hajduk 6:1 at the JNA stadium. I'm not sure if there's a case in the sports world where one such defeat shapes the fan aesthetic for decades, and hopefully centuries to come.
There were defeats that were triumphs, like the game in Glasgow against Celtic, which we lost 5-4, but went through in the Uefa Cup thanks to the away goal rule, which was almost abolished by Uefa bureaucrats to appease the bigwigs who wanted to create their own "super league" and turn football into a video game.
I will consider myself privileged if I have the opportunity to tell my grandchildren about the defeat against Maccabi in Pionir in 2001 when we cheered for an hour after the end of the game which we easily lost. We should not forget that fans of the "Pride of Israel" cheered with us, who always knew how to appreciate someone's contribution in European basketball. I was twenty-five years younger then, but I will not attribute to my youth the pride I had when I left the "most basketball" hall in this part of Europe. I believed in the future of the club. What would Duško Radović say: "I have someone to love, I love Partizan".
Simply, on November 27, several thousand fans welcomed Željko Obradović at the Belgrade airport. For its spontaneity, magnificence, and foreshadowing of the disaster to follow, I will immodestly call it March 27th. All the elements of ancient drama were there. Those who think that Žoc has become more important than the club are very much mistaken. Quite the opposite - he made him bigger, just like back then Partizan and Aleksandar Nikolić made him bigger than any coach in Europe.
Let's continue with the cheap analogies. Not long after the April 6 disaster, insurgents broke out in most of Yugoslavia. I do not agree with the post-war narrative that it was one uprising, it was four uprisings (Serbia, Montenegro, NDH and Slovenia) that broke out for different reasons - in NDH it was biological survival, in Slovenia identity, and in Serbia and Montenegro it was a matter of honor not to reconcile with evil.
Last week we were outclassed by Olympiakos. It is neither the first nor the last time. But for the first time I watched a beloved club that has no identity. like watching the London Taurus in the Eurocup, I didn't understand why this public event that costs this country an unreasonable amount of money.
We allowed our club to be led to ruin by a man who built his career dismantling stolen cars, whose complexes are best read in hair that grows and changes colors when it's not time for it. He was appointed by a dictator who even to this day dreams that he is a "respected" leader of the fans and who is leading the entire nation and country to ruin from his complex.
But it's not up to him and Partizan, we Grobari turned out to be shit, we didn't stand up against evil and preserve the image of a club that doesn't make our lives happier, but certainly makes it more fulfilling. What Boža Koprivica would say: "It's not patriotism, it's aesthetics... For me, one match is worth the best Shakespeare's sonnet or the best drama. Sport is recognizing rhythm, in music and film, rhythm is the most important thing. Anyone who doesn't know that, doesn't know anything about sports."
