Bosnia: The lilies and dragons of the World Cup
Key takeaways
- Football is bringing out in our nation what the corrupt elite would not like to see.
- Truly, football has brought out the core of what it means to be Bosnian: we are the softest and the hardest of souls, we do our best in adversity, but are tough on ourselves in peace.
- On June 24, when our team beat Qatar and qualified for the knockout stage for the first time in its history, the country was ecstatic.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Football is bringing out in our nation what the corrupt elite would not like to see.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Bosnia fans react in the stands during the match between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Qatar on June 24, 2026 [Eloisa Lopez/Reuters]When Bosnia and Herzegovina qualified for the World Cup, contagious excitement spread through the country. It was more than just football fever.
Three decades after the end of the war, after surviving genocide and the now-infamous Dayton Accords, we’re back on US territory to show we can finally start dreaming beyond that bad deal, which imposed on us harmful political structures and left our country in a straitjacket.