Zeljković is not Dodik's nephew, now Milorad is just Vico's uncle: President of the Football Association and co-creator of the national fairy tale!

Written by: Rasim Belko

The Italian public has become the praetor (supreme judge) of its football team, and the verdict is that they have disgraced and disappointed the nation's expectations. Today, no matter how good they are, well-paid, and have star status, the Italian national football team is gasping for air under the wrath of the public and the ever-recognizable aggressiveness of sports media towards any failure in Italian sports.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, adrenaline does not subside; we wander sleepless, many hungover, but happy as rarely before. Unlike Italy, which is better off than us in many ways, today we are doing well almost only in sports. Since last night, in football. By eliminating the Azzurri, we have revived and are living in the clouds.

Immense thanks to every Dragon who wore the sacred jersey in these qualifiers. Thanks also to Sergej Barbarez, Emir Spahić, and everyone in and around the professional staff of the national team who contributed to this success. It was not easy; we walked on thorns, often on the edge of the abyss, but we succeeded!

Thanks also to Vico Zeljković! For everything he has done for football in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially for the national team, which since last night is among the best national teams in the world.

He was contested when he arrived, because at that time Vico was the nephew of Milorad Dodik and thus bore the mortgage of an anti-state element in the Football Association of our country. No one, honestly not even the author of these lines, believed that we would be grateful to him today for an excellent job.

Vico Zeljković brought Sergej Barbarez as the selector when few expected it, and the public wished for it. And then we reproached him for it, because Barba had no coaching experience. But Zeljković proved to be a more mature sports worker than all those doing it at the club level in our country.

He left the professional work to the professional staff, and that staff was strengthened with icons of the national team, professionals even off the pitch, led by Emir Spahić, along with Zlatan Bajramović, Mirko Hrgović, and others.

Vico and the Association he leads removed the pressure from Barbarez and the players by setting the goal of Euro 2028, and that may have been decisive. We saw how the Italians cracked under the pressure of their public and the "necessity of qualifying for the World Cup."

For the first time in many, many years, our national team and the Football Association did not get lost under the burden of difficult and desperate results, bad results that hurt, but were obviously not defeats but lessons. The professionals, led by Barbarez and Spahić, traveled the world and gathered the children of Bosnian refugees. And there, the key work was done. Alajbegović, Bajraktarević, Muharemović, some others who played and who will play for the national team, brought sporting insolence to the team of Edin Džeko, Seja Kolašinac, Amar Dedić.

From Romania away to Italy at home, perhaps one could reproach them for technique, tactics, fitness, but one could not fault their heart on the field, the fight for every ball, and that something south of the soul needed to break the opponent's face, figuratively and literally, when necessary.

In Austria, it was close, some 13 minutes, and then came the playoffs, until yesterday the most hated French word in our country. But they got through that too, and we will watch them at the championship alongside Brazil, Spain, England, Argentina, and neighbors the Croats…

And with them, fully deserved, will go Vico Zeljković. Vico, who, besides the A team, enabled better conditions for the U-21 and younger teams. He secured the favor of UEFA, which, whether we admit it or not, we did not have before. How many times did Aleksander Čeferin come to Bosnia and Herzegovina, including yesterday, because of which, rest assured, the French referee much more easily decided to give a red card to the Italians.

Vico Zeljković has done a lot at the club level as well, leading projects to renovate the fields of our clubs, introducing the obligation of floodlights at stadiums, building artificial pitches, and so on. He works and does not give up on the idea of merging the First League of FBiH and RS, which would give the second football tier of our country greater quality and, even more importantly, influence the Premier League of BiH.

And that Premier League has also improved since Zeljković's arrival; Borac and Zrinjski pushed into group stages, even knockout stages of European competitions. The issue of refereeing remains, but he has started working on that too by bringing in a supervisor, because it is obviously not indifferent to him to hear complaints every round that referees favor Borac or Zrinjski.

But we must not be like cats that are not satisfied with a calf's head. Because we remember the time of heavy obstructions and problems in the roof house of Bosnian football; today there is none of that, or perhaps much less.

Zeljković still has to solve one difficult problem, which, due to the burden of his family connection with Dodik, seems insurmountable, but the Italians also seemed that way, and we overcame them. And the problem is the relationship with BH Fanaticos, which must be resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the nation.

Because it is ugly to hear chanting in Sarajevo's Titova Street "Vico, faggot" at the moment of celebrating the qualification for the World Cup. An uninformed observer from the side would think it is about a referee who cheated us, not about the president of the Association whose team qualified and because of which we are celebrating.

The public in Bosnia and Herzegovina must give Vico Zeljković a chance. Not a chance under duress, but a chance so that in a good relationship between the nation, BHF, and the Association, this national team can continue to grow and in the future avoid playoffs with good matches in the group stage.

That is not easy, but it is not that difficult either. Perhaps we could start by thinking that today Milorad Dodik is the uncle of Vico Zeljković. Because the wheel has turned; one is former, and the other is writing the history of football in Bosnia and Herzegovina in golden letters.

We need little for happiness, and that is worth giving a chance!