Bosnia and Herzegovina's Under-17 national football team recently qualified for the European Championship, however after a brief celebration, the coaching staff already looks ahead to the responsibilities that await them. One of Sakib Malkocevic's assistants is young coach Damjan Ratkovic, who reflected on the tournament where our team achieved a historic result:

"We were top-notch in the qualifications. Players and staff were perhaps a little tired from the trip prior to the game with Georgia, that's why we consider that match our worst. However, we were lucky and those three points opened the door to the European Championship for us. In the second match against Italy we acted very mature and disciplined, and that helped us won the game. We weren't that successful in the last round with Russia where we didn't open the match very well. Later, we had several opportunities, but in the end we lost the match, but fortunately it didn't matter because we still qualified for the Euro."

Ratkovic is looking forward to the final draw, after which we'll find out the names of our opponents: "The success that we've made is very important for Bosnia and Herzegovina, FFBIH, our players, but also for us coaches. Now we wait for the draw which will be held on Apr. 8^th, and once we find out who will be our opponents, we'll start analyzing them and their games, and get ready for the big competition."

Ratkovic believes this team is able to achieve a big score: "The way we played against Italy and Russia gives us right to hope for a positive result, because similar teams strength-wise will wait for us in Azerbaijan. We demonstrated we can deal with them, and it's up to us to prepare as best as we can. Should all the players be healthy and available, we can expect to do good. In any case, we go to Euro to compete, and we won't be an easy task to anyone there."