Strikers from former Yugoslavia thrive in Bundesliga

Ibi­se­vic cel­e­brates with Hof­fen­heim fans

Tal­ented strik­ers from the for­mer Yugoslavia are a valu­able com­mod­ity in the Bun­desliga this sea­son. A wave of Yugo-nostalgia has spread across the Ger­man league and is fol­low­ing a trend of Soviet Chic in Germany.

Match­day 19 high­lighted the depen­dence many Bun­desliga squads have on their strik­ing stal­warts from nations that once belong to the Social­ist Fed­eral Repub­lic of Yugoslavia — Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina, Croa­tia, Ser­bia and Slove­nia are all rep­re­sented. Con­sid­ered one-time com­pa­tri­ots, the Sloven­ian Milivoje Novakovic indulged him­self in two goals play­ing along­side Serbia’s Nemanja Vuci­ce­vic. With his prim hair­cut and gan­gling gait, Novakovic eased his way to 12 Bun­desliga goals in a 2–2 draw away to Ein­tra­cht Frank­furt. Mean­while in Wolfs­burg, Bosn­ian duo Zvjez­dan Mis­i­movic and Edin Dzeko com­bined to con­sign Bochum to a two-goal defeat. The opener was cre­ated by Mis­i­movic, a nim­ble pass allow­ing an increas­ingly impres­sive Dzeko to strike from inside the area. Dzeko showed superb aware­ness for his sec­ond goal, this time craftily glanc­ing a way­ward Schäfer shot into the far corner.

The cred­i­bil­ity of play­ers from the region has cer­tainly increased this sea­son. The top scorer list is cur­rently headed by Bosn­ian Vedad Ibiše­vic with 18 goals. His absence for the rest of the sea­son due to a knee injury may well cost Hof­fen­heim their fairy­tale title — though they do boast another attack­ing Bosn­ian player in Sejad Sal­i­hovic. Serbia’s Marko Pan­telic is also fronting Hertha Berlin’s unlikely title chal­lenge, hav­ing stayed with the club dur­ing a frosty trans­fer win­dow. His two goals at the start of the Rück­runde were ded­i­cated to his preg­nant spouse, Pan­telic play­ing his part in fur­ther­ing an already impres­sive Ser­bian con­tin­gent in the Ger­man cap­i­tal includ­ing Gojko Kacar.

Suc­cess for these play­ers may sim­ply be for prag­matic foot­balling rea­sons: Ibi­se­vic, Dzeko and Novakovic are all well over 6 feet tall, rel­a­tively slim and with assured yet grace­less touches. Too slight for the Pre­mier­ship, too awk­ward for La Liga and Serie A. There are also a breed of inno­v­a­tive ‘Num­ber 10′ types such as Mis­i­movic, whilst not for­get­ting Croatian-born Mladen Pet­ric or Ivan Rakitic. The classi­est exports from the region are already fil­ter­ing through to Eng­land: Luka Mod­ric, Niko Kran­j­car and Zoran Tosic have all found them­selves at Pre­mier League clubs. Ger­many may how­ever offer more cul­tural affin­ity to the region than other lead­ing Euro­pean foot­ball leagues — often act­ing as a port of call for east­ern Euro­pean migrants. Even Die Mannschaft’s pre­ferred for­ward line at the last two major tour­na­ments fea­tured a striker born in Poland and the other who appears to have split loy­al­ties with his lineage.

Should this trend con­tinue, the Bun­desliga might expect to see a swell of strik­ers from the newly-formed Mon­tene­gro national team. It cer­tainly seems as if the par­tic­u­lar set of iden­ti­ties in this region of South-East Europe fits the Bun­desliga. How­ever, Roma­ni­ans and Bul­gar­i­ans have not taken Ger­many by storm, sug­gest­ing a cul­tural rather than geo­graphic  dis­tance. What­ever the rea­son, there’s enough evi­dence to show the way for­ward for Europe’s most excit­ing league.

Tagged as: Bosnia, Croatia, Dzeko, Edin Dzeko, Ibisevic, Milivoje Novakovic, Montenegro, Novakovic, Serbia, Slovenia, Vedad Ibisevic