Bosnia vs. America, on and off the pitch

When two teams take to the World Cup pitch, their national histories and politics take the field with them. Seldom is that weight as present as in Wednesday’s knockout stage game between the U.S. and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The U.S. played a decisive role in ending Bosnia's nearly four-year war in the 1990s, a conflict that claimed more than 100,000 lives and produced the single worst crime on European soil since World War II — the Srebrenica Genocide, in which more than 8,000 Bosniaks, mostly men and boys, were summarily executed in early July 1995. “The United States is an indispensable ally,” said Reuf Bajrović, the vice president of the US-Europe Alliance, a nonprofit group that works on mobilizing Americans around key European issues. Bajrović, as many in Bosnia would, highlights that the existence of an “independent, free and sovereign Bosnia” is the direct result of U.S. involvement in ending the war and brokering a peace deal, widely known as the Dayton Peace Accords — signed in Dayton, Ohio. Thirty years later, the country faces internal disputes and struggles with a political system that is deeply vulnerable to nationalist manipulation. But reaching this stage and competing against their erstwhile liberator has unleashed a rare moment of collective elation across the Balkan nation. “A nation which was supposed to be erased from history is competing with the most powerful and influential nation in the world,” Bajrović continued. “The euphoria is absolute,” he continued. Even the country’s most famous footballing son, former AC Milan star Zlatan Ibrahimović, said he felt “goosebumps” watching Bosnia's fairytale run to the round of 32. Ibrahimović, who was born in Sweden but embraces his father’s Bosnian heritage, had earlier trolled his fellow Fox Sports co-anchors by playing pop-folk songs by Bosnian singer Lepa Brena as an homage to his roots. Yet back home, some worry that America’s more recent role in Bosnia's brittle political order has been anything bu