The other boys in green

Holland, as we know, are not going to next year’s World Cup finals. Slovenia, however, are. A ludicrous proposition on the face of it, but upon closer inspection, not as farcically unjust as it first appears.

You may have missed this due to being preoccupied by the grisly goings-on in Tehran, but Europe’s sixth-smallest country qualified for next year’s finals by battling their way to a 1-1 draw with Romania in Bucharest last week.

It is true that there will be weaker sides than Slovenia at the 2002 World Cup finals. Tunisia, Costa Rica, Senegal and virtually all the Asian teams spring to mind, as do Germany and England, if we’re going to be brutally honest about it. However, it’s fair to say that there will be no other teams present who are drawing their available talent from such an apparently shallow well.

For those of you who haven’t been moved to thumb through an atlas since your Leaving Cert, Slovenia is essentially two medium-sized towns and a few mountain-tops lying squarely between Austria and Croatia. There are Anglo-Irish aristocrats profiled every week in the Sunday Independent whose back gardens are bigger than this place.

And yet, somehow, the past three years have seen them reinvent themselves as one of the best teams in Europe, if not the world. Even before this latest achievement, they knocked Norway out of Euro 2000, for which no praise can ever be sufficient, and came within an ace of inflicting an embarrassing defeat on Yugoslavia in the same tournament. Now they are going to the World Cup.

In recognition of this jaw-dropping turn of events, Foul Play has decided to salute this bunch of brave, plucky, bedraggled, spirited, etc, etc Balkan buccaneers by reeling off ten heavily contrived, yet highly germane, reasons why Slovenia are the new Ireland.

1. They react to a good result by taking to the streets and drinking their heads off. In the aftermath of the Romania game, Ljubljana’s supermarkets registered record sales of alcohol to the celebrating citizenry. However, no serious injuries were reported amid the revelry, a state of affairs which one news agency described as “a minor miracle”.

2. Their greatest sporting triumphs have tended to occur in other codes. For Gaelic games, athletics and rugby, read skiing, shooting and rowing. Slovenia actually picked up gold medals in the latter two sports at the Sydney Olympics.

3. They don’t play particularly fantastic football. Their players can pass it around a bit when the need arises, but their habit of getting vast numbers of bodies behind the ball often mitigates against free-flowing play. So, at times, particularly when defending a lead, Slovenia can be hard on the eyes. For example, their 0-0 draw with Norway in Arnhem last summer was, without exaggeration, quite the worst match this writer has ever been unfortunate enough to witness. It made the Iran-Ireland game look like Liverpool 4 Newcastle 3 from five years ago.

4. They amount to considerably more than the sum of their parts. Playmaker Zlatko Zahovic (see below) is drawing a wage at Benfica these days, but most of the others are attached to clubs like Beveren and Red Star Belgrade. The “star” striker is Milan Osterc, a balding journeyman whose goal for Hapoel Tel Aviv recently helped to remove Chelsea from the UEFA Cup for another season.

5. They sealed World Cup qualification while deprived of the services of their best player. Zahovic, a Hagi-like figure whose extraordinary gifts are matched only by his ability to talk his way out of expensive contracts with the likes of Valencia and Porto, missed the Romania game with an injury. Slovenia also had to do without Kaiserslautern’s Aleksander Knavs, rated as the Bundesliga’s best defender. With those two back in the team, they will feel confident of “taking” Argentina or France.

6. They have a relatively young (ish) manager who played for his country at Italia 90. In a previous life, Srecko Katanec was a skilful midfielder with Sampdoria and the Yugoslavian national team. These days, restlessly prowling the touchline, swathed in a long brown overcoat and drawing on a cigarette, he resembles a younger, better-groomed Columbo.

7. Each successive good result is invariably seized upon by grandstanding politicians eager for a little gilt by association. President Milan Kucan and prime minister Janez Drnovsek joined the 20,000 supporters at Brnik airport to welcome the players home from Bucharest on Thursday, and predictably disgraced themselves by spouting loads of self-serving shite about teamwork and courage being Slovenia’s national characteristics. Not as toe-curling as Charles Haughey winning the 1987 Tour de France on behalf of Stephen Roche, however.

8. They wear the same colours as our boys. Except in reverse. Slovenia’s players take the field for each game clad in a fetching Adidas ensemble of white shirts, green shorts and white socks (the away kit is some kind of horrific dark green affair). Like Jamaica at the last World Cup, you might see their shirts being sported on Irish streets next summer, probably by the kind of people who regard Manchester United replica jersey-wearers as mindless corporate sheep.

9. Er . . .

10. That’s it.