Sergej, don't be the face of your country, stay a sensei!

The ball has eyes, I know every tactic by heart,
And I'll die for the jersey on every inch like Barbarez.

Written by: Rasim Belko @rasimbelko

Oh, it would be good if five years after Sarajevo rapper Kontra sang these verses, Sergej Barbarez could stand on the football pitch in the national team jersey and show what he's got.

Lithuanians, Finns, Hungarians and similar football nations would not be insurmountable obstacles for us. Germans, Dutch and others would not be able to score as many as they wanted, but would have to soak their jerseys well for an extra goal.

But, football hopes are only a shade less euphoric than football disappointments. And last night, the Bosnian-Herzegovinian nation experienced a humiliation we have never remembered before. And the biggest problem is not the number of goals, nor is that the cause of disappointment. It is the consequence of accepting compromises, and that usually ends in the euthanasia of dreams and hopes. Germany euthanized us football-wise last night for the long haul. And it's not a problem when Germany does that to you, but when you take Liechtenstein as a serious national team, then you definitely have nothing to hope for.

Sergej Barbarez is a man about whose patriotism, competitive spirit and football knowledge I neither want nor can argue. He proved long ago what and how much he knows. But, Sergej Barbarez on the bench of the senior football national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina is not the same Sergej Barbarez that Kontra once sang about.

Sergej, the face of your country?

Staying upright in defeat and grounded in victory is not easy, but it is expected of professionals like Sergej Barbarez once was. Trying to belittle others, just because you don't like their criticism, attitude, comment or question, is a sign of weakness that undermines everything you have built your whole life.

I fear that with this dialogue, Sergej Barbarez has closed the door for any future attempt to do something with the Dragons. Every subsequent defeat, and they are inevitable, will be viewed through the prism of his answers to the journalist from the Sportsport.ba portal, and thus the chances of Sergej becoming former will grow.

And regardless of the fact that Sergej Barbarez is my favorite footballer – it's time for him to go. Because, the Barbarez who was a sensei in Kontra's song has disappeared.

This Barbarez is, in every possible way, “the face of his country.” Kontra, you were right. Because, last night Barbarez was the personification of the bad socio-political system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a system in which no one ever said: “I am responsible, I am leaving.”

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, people suffer, and those responsible behave exactly as Barbarez behaved in the abyss of Freiburg.

An additional reason for concern for the future of Bosnian football is the fact that Barbarez looked more like Milorad Dodik than a former footballer and now a selector with a German stamp on his biography.

“You don't need to ask anything,” said the selector after seven goals in his national team's net. And he added that the journalist asks stupid things. And we all saw that they weren't stupid, because on Barbarez's face there was no longer that fire with which he once defended the colors of his homeland, and on the faces of his players, except for the fear of an even fuller net, we could see nothing else.

And that is not just about football. The diagnosis is somewhere much deeper than we can currently guess. Whether it lies solely in the leadership of the umbrella organization of Bosnian football, in the locker room, in the selector's head, or a bit everywhere – it is still difficult to conclude.

However, without a diagnosis, we won't even start to get out of the abyss we have fallen into. The only question is whether there is anyone in the Association or the national team who cares enough to start thinking about the improvement of our football, both national and club.

Sergej Barbarez is not that – and I am sorry.

Sergej Barbarez was that, and last night only that detail where Kulenović runs after the Germans and the only time in the match our selection took the ball resembled Sergej. Everything else seemed like the fulfillment of a prophecy that someone had long prepared a script for breaking the Dragons and the Dragon's nest as the only bright spot under the gloomy clouds of the Bosnian sky.

Sergej, don't be an actor on those boards, stay a sensei!