Prior to today’s match of football national teams of Greece and BiH, analysts reminded of the previous matches of the two teams, especially the great victory of the Dragons in Zenica which opened us the doors to the World Championship in Brazil.
Matches with Greece from the period of the former Yugoslavia are also still remembered, and football players from BiH played an important role in them as well.
On April 29, 1981 in Split, in qualifications for the World Championship in Spain, the Greek national team was in a swing – one year earlier they participated in the finals of one competition for the first time in history – finals of the European Championship in Italy.
Since the Greeks started the qualifications for Mundial in Spain with amazing performances and the “blues” lost to Italy, the match in Split was almost equally important as today’s match in Athens.
Coach Miljan Miljanić brought the following players in front of 50.000 spectators at the Poljud Stadium: Pantelić, Krmpotić, Hrstić, Zajec, Stojković, Buljan, Zl. Vujović, Slišković, Halilhodžić, Šljivo, Pašić.
In other words, almost the entire naval five was from BiH (Slišković, Halilhodžić, Šljivo, Pašić), although the only “intruder” Zlatko Vujović, the striker of Hajduk, was also born in Sarajevo and went to school with Predrag Pašić.
The match on Poljud will be remembered as the life game of Edhem Šljivo. The former captain of Sarajevo was running like clockwork and already in the seventh minute he scored an amazing goal from the distance of 25 meters for the advantage of Yugoslavia of 1:0.
Until the break, Halilhodžić and Pantelić increased the advantage. Predrag Pašić, whose great assistance brought a penalty kick for 3:0, “hit” Vujović for 4:0, and then the striker of Hajduk shook the net of Sarganis for 5:0. Until the end of the match, the Greeks only managed to mitigate their defeat from the penalty kick for the final 5:1.
(Source: radiosarajevo.ba)
