Oct. 15, 2013
“In the shadows next to the airfield, eight men huddled behind piles of snow: a soldier and seven soccer players. Or at least they had once been soccer players. This was February 1993, and league football hadn’t been played in Sarajevo for well over a year. The siege of Sarajevo, which would last four years, had begun in April ’92, one month after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia. The battle to control the new capital was the centerpiece of a civil war among ethnic Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) that would take nearly 100,000 lives. In these times there was no prospect of even a casual outdoor kick-around.” SI – Jonathan Wilson