Born and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin, Ismir Bajraktarević became a Bosnian sensation when he scored the winning penalty against Italy in the qualifiers. He is revised by his assistants from the left world cup, And his reputation for nutming opponents precedes him. Growing up in America, the family never forgot their roots.
In the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, a few years before his birth, many of Esmir’s relatives were killed. His parents, Elmir and Emina, first fled to Switzerland as refugees before settling in Appleton in 2001. “My parents lost a good part of their family,” Esmir told The Blazing Musket. “It’s a tragedy and something I’ll never forget. Srebrenica is something I’ll never forget. It’s a part of me and who I am.” Representing Bosnia was not difficult for the 21-year-old.
He shares that deep tug of the Bosnian heart with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who entertains Americans on FOX as a World Cup TV pundit.
Ibrahimovic has previously joked about the connection. Bosnian NBA player Nihad Dedovic was once asked if he was related and replied, “No, my father never went to Sweden.” Ibra’s response: “But my father has gone to Bosnia.”
This time, however, the common sense, whose bicycle-kick banter has Thierry Henry bracing and Alexis Lalas rolling his eyes most nights, is out of character. He spoke emotionally about how many knockouts Bosnia Herzegovina had scored and how much it meant to him to have 70,000 sing along the streets of Sarajevo. “My father’s roots are from there and the Bosnian people have suffered a lot. It makes me emotional, I can’t even express myself,” he said on Fox.
His father, Sefik Ibrahimovic, a Bosnian Muslim, met his mother in Sweden, where the family settled. The couple, now divorced, raised the blunt-spoken but beautifully gifted Ibra in the rugged Malmö district of Rosengård.
Bosnia fans celebrate after the World Cup Group B soccer match between Bosnia and Qatar, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Maddy Grassi)
Football, Ibra likes to say, is about bringing people together. In Bosnia, things are slowly unfolding.
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While ethnic tensions between Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats have never fully subsided, Bosnia’s Round of 32 clash against the USA saw them face a historic liberator with whom things have soured recently.
The Guardian reports that two flags are being flown in Sarajevo this World Cup summer. One is the national flag adopted in 1998, flown by the US-led international forces that intervened to end the ethnic-cleansing campaign in the Bosnian war that killed nearly 100,000 people, the worst single atrocity being the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, in which more than 80 children were killed in 0 days.
That official flag, a blue and yellow diagonal with white stars, was gratefully accepted by Bosniaks of all heritage, as violence ceased.
The second flag features golden lilies on a blue shield against white and, as the Guardian points out, has a very deep history, covered in centuries of complexity. This resurrected ethnic-identity flag is popular with young people and is flown at public screenings in Bosnia.
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According to the Guardian’s account, the golden lotus, called Zlatni Lijiljan, grows wild in Bosnia’s Dinaric Alps and blooms every May and June. It was the symbol of the medieval Kotromanic Bosnian state, a shared, non-religious heritage chosen as the national flag in 1992. After independence he was associated with the resistance forces of the mostly Muslim Bosnian army, fighting off attacks from its neighbors, the paper reported. While the official flag is accepted as settled history, the golden lily is re-emerging as an assertion of Bosnian identity.
Bosnia’s Ismir Bajraktarević, right, celebrates after Qatar’s Sultan Albrek scores an own goal during their World Cup Group B soccer match in Seattle, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsay Wasson)
It doesn’t help that America has recently stirred up new excitement among Bosniaks. The Trump administration lifted sanctions on Milorad Dodik, the former leader of Republika Srpska, who had long pushed for secession, last October, and Dodik has pushed more for self-determination and for Republika Srpska to exit the Dayton Framework, moving closer to Moscow in the process. Trump allies, meanwhile, are scouting the region for lucrative commercial projects, The Guardian reports. Washington’s official line for the Dayton Accords and Bosnia’s territorial integrity remains intact, but six U.S. senators and two House members wrote to Secretary of State Rubio and Treasury Secretary Bessant in late March, according to a letter posted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, demanding new sanctions and continuing to carry out Dodik’s threats. The country’s historic custodian, however, has kept quiet about his old commitments.
Bosniaks once expressed great gratitude to America. Nowadays they sew betrayal.
On the field, the much-vaunted but aging Bosnian team won’t start as favorites against the USMNT, but Esmir Bajraktarević, known to his old New England Revolution teammates as the “Milwaukee Messi,” will roam the left wing with his nutmeg.
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There should be no needle between the two teams when they face each other on Wednesday. But this is Zlatni Ljiljan’s flowering season, and the sting of defiance can go all the way to San Francisco.