Google Sergez Barbarez and the first search result will be from the poker website CardPlayer where this gentleman has collected a cool USD 143,648 playing poker.
As Bosnia and Herzegovina take on Canada on Friday night, all eyes will be on the side where Barbarez will lead the charge against the hosts in Group B.
Before dragging B&H to the World Cup, and two summers before he knocked beloved Italy out of the World Cup, Barbarez had happily retired to Germany where he played extensively for Borussia Dortmund, Hamburger SV and Bayer Leverkusen.
A 47-match stalwart for B&H, he was much loved at home. He had a coaching license, but never trained. Instead he played at the poker tables and reached the final table of the World Series as a former professional.
“I told the players to go out on the pitch and enjoy themselves,” Barbarez said after the win against Italy. “I’ve never entered or finished a game calm, I saw it in their eyes, I really like them, they have character. We are proud that we are two years ahead of schedule. Now I have told them that we want to go to a tournament every two years,” he said before winning in 49 overs in a poor match at Zmavi9.
While Emir Spahic runs the plays as sporting director, Barbarez, 54, has slipped into his role as manager and ace motivator.
Aggressive defending, physicality and an outrageous 41 long balls (one that Dzeko spent every year on earth), were the basis of their victory over Italy as they took the midfield out of the equation. It centered on the 6-4″ Erin Dzeko who was given an aerial ball into the box to take out opposing center backs.
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Benfica’s Amar Dedic is the wheel from the right wing while Ivan Sunjic and Benjamin Tahirovic are the bulldozers in an attacking 4-4-2. They may make news for the 40-year-olds on the field, mainly Edin Dzeko, but Barbarez trusted 18-year-old Kerim Alajbegovic to take ice-cold penalties in shootouts against Wales and Italy.
B&H has Qatar, Canada and Switzerland, and St. Louis (aka Little Bosnia) takes care of the Decibel lending community. They arrived in the 1990s during the war and genocide, and number 70,000, including Bosnians and Croats who fled. While building a community while recovering from PTSD, they built a replica wooden fountain in Little Bosnia that mimics one in the capital, Sarajevo, known as Sebilj, according to the AP’s Stephen Wade via the Columbia Missourian. The Scala Bar is an important landmark that commemorates the more than one million people killed in the genocide.
The group is made up of Bosnian Muslims, Croatian Roman Catholics and Serbian Orthodox Christians. “A lot of people from here go to Bosnia every year to visit families,” Jasmina Cilic, an activist at the Scala Bar, told Wade. “The union represents unity because they are all three religions and everyone is the same as they were when they were in Yugoslavia.”
The Bevo Mill Bakery in St. Louis, Missouri became the go-to eatery while Sevapi – charcoal grilled meat in soft bread – became the most popular food truck at local soccer MLS stadiums.
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Their ultras also travel. BH Fanaticos, Horde Zla, Manijaci, Ultras Mostar, Lesinari (Undertaker Duplicate) can all mess up, though their intra-Ultra rivalries are worse. But the blue and yellow flags will fly against Canada.