What? I already made this thread and it had 20 posts

 

Sorry bro

 

I was thinking we could change the title to something like, Bosnia&Herzegovina in the 2014 World Cup


or 2014 World Cup - Bosnia-Herzegovina road to the Maracana

 

Road to Maracana wouldn't work as we're already there, but that sounds better.

 

http://www.klix.ba/sport/nogomet/ha...ogomet/haris-medunjanin-dobrim-nastupom-u-brazilu-ponovo-usreciti-bih/131023073

Nogometaš turskog Gaziantepspora i reprezentacije Bosne i Hercegovine Haris Medunjanin u razgovoru za Anadoliju izjavio je da još ne može da vjeruje da je BiH izborila plasman na Svjetsko prvenstvo (SP) u Brazilu iduće godine.

Snažno vjeruje da će reprezentacije BiH pokazati dobar i lijep nogomet u Brazilu i da će biti vrlo uspješna na takmičenju na kojem se okupljaju najbolje selekcije svijeta.

Podsjetio je da su svi igrači iz reprezentacije BiH dali svoj doprinos, vrijedno i naporno radili kako bi usrećili građane BiH plasmanom u Brazil.

“Još ne mogu da vjerujem da smo izborili plasman na Svjetsko prvenstvo u Brazilu 2014. godine. Da ste samo vidjeli posljednju utakmicu koju smo igrali u Bosni i Hercegovini. Sada želimo usrećiti bosanski narod i dobrim igrama i u Brazilu. Nadam se da ćemo imati i malo sreće na tom takmičenju”, rekao je Medunjanin.

 

Nogometaš turskog Gaziantepspora i reprezentacije Bosne i Hercegovine Haris Medunjanin u razgovoru za Anadoliju izjavio je da još ne može da vjeruje da je BiH izborila plasman na Svjetsko prvenstvo (SP) u Brazilu iduće godine.
.

Right there with him :musik:

 

Good bye old thread, hello new thread!

 

This thread sux

 

It doesn't even have a funny name.

Long live the old thread!

EDIT

Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella says that he will only use new players in the match against us. Very disappointing.

 

No, I can tell my friends that Bosnia beat Argentina

 

I would still like us to play the team they will use in the World Cup. If we just want to try new players we could play Slovenia instead. Not necessary to travel half across the world for that.

I don't know about you guys but I'm little concerned after our last couple of matches: loss against USA, loss against Slovakia, narrow half-assed win against Slovakia, Liechtenstein and another narrow win against Lithuania. Goals conceded in all matches except the last. I think we are far away from good form and some players (such as Salihovic) has left a doubtful impression through the whole qualification campaign. I think we really need strong opponents right now to see where we belong among the 32 World Cup teams.

 

I don't know about you guys but I'm little concerned after our last couple of matches: loss against USA, loss against Slovakia, narrow half-assed win against Slovakia, Liechtenstein and another narrow win against Lithuania. Goals conceded in all matches except the last. I think we are far away from good form and some players (such as Salihovic) has left a doubtful impression through the whole qualification campaign. I think we really need strong opponents right now to see where we belong among the 32 World Cup teams.

I'm concerned about the form somewhat, but I'm not sure that playing the 2nd/3rd best NT in the world would help that form.

The thing is, we know the NT's strengths and weaknesses are. We don't need to play Argentina's regular squad to find that out.

Issues

Lack of depth in almost all positions
Fitness issues
A solid DM and LB are badly needed. (The LB position or DM position may have solution with Kolasinac joining the NT - as he plays both positions)

Now the real concentration aside from solving the aforementioned issues is trying out some formations/tactics that are much more balanced and seeing how we play with that balanced approach. Everyone agrees that we have utilized some extreme tactics/strategies, especially in this qualification cycle.

Personally, I think we can play a more balanced approach and still create a lot and score goals. But how we defend, since a more balanced approach will certainly include more focus on that area is more questionable. Personally, my opinion is that when we brought Lulic/Mujdza in the squad, things already improved in the defensive end. Lulic is far more effective up the field, but his athleticism at LB, along with Mujdza's at RB, already puts us ahead in that area from the past. They were huge gains to this NT.

Now, I'd actually disagree about the assertion that we've been really bad down this stretch. First, we played great against Lichtenstein. We simply decided to take it easy in the 2nd half. Second, we totally dominated Lithuania and the score could have even been more. The fact is much more talented sides have issues scoring on these little sides, especially in important, nerve-inducing games. The 2nd Slovakia game, even the Slovak coach and their team thought we totally deserved to win. The first game we were shit though. But we took so much risk that it could never have been a complete or pretty game. And the American friendly was just a perfect example of not having depth. Tons of substitutions including the likes of Sunjic/Zukanovic. It was Bicackic first game. That killed us.

But yeah, we can't be surprised that we really haven't played many complete games considering the crazy tactics Susic has played. So I'm pretty interested how we play trying some more balanced approaches.

 

Fully agree - we lost against the USA and Slovakia, and then won by a miraculous individual effort by Izet Hajrovic. Struggled hugely to get any kind of result vs Lithuania and only won by a narrow 1 - 0. We need to see where we stand and work on our squad fast because the only two decent top 30 opposition we faced, we lost.

 

Pape appeard on Al Jazeera Balkans for an interview and once again made it clear that we need two teams to be successful at the World Cup, at the moment we just have one. He mentioned Kolasinac, Vranjes and one more player (can't remember) as possible additions to the NT + 2-3 players that he got no idea about yet. He didn't seem dead serious so all names of new players should be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

Two teams? A and B?

 

Nah he's talking about having a good bench, basically 2 good players for every position. I agree with him, looks quite poor at the moment.

 

Had Pape not subbed our entire team as quickly as he did, we probably would have won against the US.

 

Oh well, that 1-0 against Slovakia should not have happened

 

Yeah, but it could have been 0-0 if it weren't for a deflcetion.

 

Perhaps you could call this thread "all the shin pads are belong to us"?

 

They can have their shinpads back, we have 9 million euros now anyway

 

Susic said himself that we went full gung-ho this campaign and against top 10 sides we would have been absolutely raped with this style of play. We need more balance for sure. The depth issue is a hard one. The LB slot is filled with Kolasinac. CDM is a toughie though, potentially Mato Jajalo? Who else? We could possibly play Salihovic at CDM? I'm not sure

I would like this kind of team though

 

I think something like this could be interesting.. would love to see it in a friendly:

Begović
Mujdža Bičakčić Spahić Lulić
Hajrović Kolašinac Salihović Pjanić
Džeko Ibišević​

Mujdža and Lulić as attacking fullbacks, responsible for providing width and crosses; Hajrović and Pjanić as wide playmakers, cutting in as necessary; Džeko and Ibišević playing a very similar role to what they currently do for us. Just about everyone would be in a position/role they're pretty comfortable with, and it would have a good balance... I could see us putting up a good fight against most teams at the World Cup with this. What it counts on though is Kolašinac and Hajrović continuing to develop, Salihović getting back into form, and Mujdža staying healthy. Also, our bench would be pretty thin... Misimović and Ibričić to an extent, but that's only if they magically get in form... ditto for Zahirović, and we have no alternative fullbacks who could play this way on the horizon.

 

I think something like this could be interesting.. would love to see it in a friendly:

Begović
Mujdža Bičakčić Spahić Lulić
Hajrović Kolašinac Salihović Pjanić
Džeko Ibišević​

Mujdža and Lulić as attacking fullbacks, responsible for providing width and crosses; Hajrović and Pjanić as wide playmakers, cutting in as necessary; Džeko and Ibišević playing a very similar role to what they currently do for us. Just about everyone would be in a position/role they're pretty comfortable with, and it would have a good balance... I could see us putting up a good fight against most teams at the World Cup with this. What it counts on though is Kolašinac and Hajrović continuing to develop, Salihović getting back into form, and Mujdža staying healthy. Also, our bench would be pretty thin... Misimović and Ibričić to an extent, but that's only if they magically get in form... ditto for Zahirović, and we have no alternative fullbacks who could play this way on the horizon.

Solid formation.

For balance sake, Lulic at LB, Kolasinac at DM, and the introduction of Visca/Hajrovic at LM or as wingers (a position we have some depth in) makes ton of sense. Makes more sense than playing Lulic upfield, (when we actually have other options up there). If we simply keep Lulic at LB, we also solve the DM problem. Pretty cool.

I'd disagree with two things.

Playing Medunjanin with Kolasinac makes a ton of sense. Medu is terrific at distributing the ball and ensuring we break out properly, especially from deeper positions. He's smart, he has good passing, and he sticks to his role. Kola seems like he's more the destroyer type, so makes sense to pair them.

The other thing I disagree with is the two strikers. Couple reasons. First, Ibisevic has never been all that great for the NT. If he looks any better this qualification cycle, I'd argue its mostly because of the gung-ho strategy. If he has to come back deeper, he's a pretty big disaster. Poor first touch, bad passing, and not all that intelligent. Even more relevant/important, 5 in midfield will create natural width. It also allows us to control the game a bit, retain possession, instead of just booting the ball upfield. I think we have the NT to do that.

 

Great interview with Safet Susic; this man is down to earth. :thumbsup:

XLijiVBJ97Y

 

@ Manijak

A third of the teams at World Cup are like Argentina. We will most likely have a top 10 team in our group, sooner of later we will have to confront them aswell. So I would rather play them now and see us being destroyed in a meaningless friendly and perhaps learn something from it, than hype up against crap teams and then get destroyed at the WC instead.

I'm not saying we're bad, because we are still winning, still scoring goals. But I definitely think we are missing some flow in the game. Just check the highlights from the Lithuania match and you will see that most of our chances came from set pieces (Pjanic's freekicks), I think Ibisevic had a proper shot on goal aswell. Against Slovakia we were saved by a corner and a 30m shot, the Slovaks had an offside goal and atleast 2 good shots at goal. Like you said, we could've lost that one. It also took us 27 minutes to score against Liechtenstein at home, in a extremely important match. I know this is not how we usually play, but it feels like there was more of this a couple of years ago:

U9MeYM93SAc

Or am I being too harsh?

 

@ Manijak



I'm not saying we're bad, because we are still winning, still scoring goals. But I definitely think we are missing some flow in the game. Just check the highlights from the Lithuania match and you will see that most of our chances came from set pieces (Pjanic's freekicks), I think Ibisevic had a proper shot on goal aswell. Against Slovakia we were saved by a corner and a 30m shot, the Slovaks had an offside goal and atleast 2 good shots at goal. Like you said, we could've lost that one. It also took us 27 minutes to score against Liechtenstein at home, in a extremely important match. I know this is not how we usually play, but it feels like there was more of this a couple of years ago:



Or am I being too harsh?

I completely agree, we've been absolute shit recently. We struggled to score against LIECHTENSTEIN, in a crucial game. 27 minutes for our first goal. Ridiculous. We struggled against Slovakia hugely. A debatable offside goal for us from Bicakcic from a corner, and a spectacular individual effort from Hajrovic saved us. Apart from that, we were terrible and could have lost incredibly easy. We also struggled to score against one of the worst teams in Europe, Lithuania. It took 70 minutes for our first goal. ****ing ridiculous alm: Thank God that ball somehow came to Ibisevic. It took us 70 minutes to break down the world-class Lithuanian defence. Not to mention we keep conceding to Liechtenstein. We've conceded twice in two games to the worst team in Europe alm: We are missing something, of course, but what is it?

 

Russia drew Azerbaijan surely they're minnows.


We played under a lot of pressure in our last few games, everyone was watching and expected results. At Brazil, no one will expect us to do much, which is when we are at our best.

 

They drew due to a 90+3' goal, which was irrelevant because even a draw would be enough for them to qualify 1st place.

 

So why does it matter how we secure our first place?

 

Because if we hadn't beat Lithuania, we would not have qualified. It's clear as daylight. We were very bad vs Liechtenstein, Lithuania and Slovakia and it almost cost us another WC.