Elevate October 2020 | Air Serbia

S erbia will play against Norway in Oslo on 8 th October at 8.45pm, and victory will secure a home tie against Scotland or Israel. ose two victories would bring a long-awaited ap- pearance at the European Championships. At this point we don‘t know if our Eagles will succeed in taking us further and whether we will play at the

magnificent Wembley (oh what luck that would be), but we have the right to hope, right? e last time our na- tional team participated was as Yugoslavia in the year 2000, and back then it was the most spectac- ular team of the tourna- ment, not because of its success, but because of its matches that includ- ed many goals and twists. In that championship the team celebrated on- ly a 1-0 victory against Norway, but then man- aged to come back “from the dead” against Slove- nia (from 0-3 to 3-3), after which it lost out to Spain despite having a convinc- ing lead (3-4). Next came the match against tour- nament hosts the Neth- erlands. At that moment we were still hurting from Mijatović hitting the crossbar during the World

The last time our national team participated was as Yugoslavia in the year 2000 Poslednji put je naša selekcija učestvovala kao Jugoslavija 2000. godine

Some dreams and desires of the fans of Serbia's “Eagles” manage to come true, but one dream remains unrealised. We have been unable to make it to the famous European Football Championships for the last 20 years! But perhaps we'll nonetheless succeed this October? SIX DECADES OF THE EUROPEAN FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS We all dream of the green grass of Wembley

Srbija 8. oktobra od 20.45 u Oslu igra protiv Norveške, a trijumf bi joj doneo meč na domaćem terenu protiv Škotske ili Izraela Serbia will play against Norway in Oslo on 8 th October at 8.45pm, and victory will secure a home tie against Scotland or Israel

Cup of two years earlier, when we again lost to the Dutch. And then came the catastrophe of a 6-1 drub- bing at this European Championship. Never again! Despite all of that, we are still the best nation- al team never to have won the European Cham- pionships, after having finished in second place twice (in 1960 and 1968), at the first and third instalments of the championships!

Yugoslavia hosted the European Championships, marking the only ma- jor football tournament ever to be held in the Balkans and one of only a few held in a Slavic country. Yugo- slavia‘s “Blues” finished fourth, with Czechoslovakia becoming champi-

Tekst/Words: Miodrag Dimitrijević Fotografije/Photography: Profimedia.rs, Aleksandar Dimitrijević

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