Players from the domestic championship, who have already had the opportunity to enter the first appearances for the senior team, expect with impatience the arrival of other national team’s players and the start of the training sessions.

The goalkeeper of Zrinjski, Kenan Pirić, hopes to get a chance in one of these two matches: “I believe that, since Begović and Burić are absent, I could get a chance and, regardless of whether there are two minutes or thirty, it will be a pleasure to wear a national team’s dress and stand on the goal.”

The American tour has a special significance for Pirić, because he recorded his first appearance for the national team in the match against Mexico. Emotions are, as he says, difficult to describe:

“It's completely different feeling to put on the national team’s dress and stand on the goal, than when I defended the goals of “Sloboda” or now of “Zrinjski”. Simply, my heart was knocked “two hundred per an hour” and I had a little jitters in the beginning. I will always remember that moment when I entered the game. Except for my heart hit hard, I was cowered, because I was aware that I play against a quality opponent in an uncertain match. Besides, I was so concentrated that I only later realized that in 45 minutes I did not look at the clock at all, which I think has never happened before. I tried to defend the best I could and show myself in the best possible light to the new boss, as well as the goalkeeper’s coach.”

What does Kenan Pirić think when he is on the goal of his team?

“We play attacking in “Zrinjski”, so I am also asked to play as “libero”, to go out and to cut deeper balls, so, what I’m thinking about during the game is how to play better and contribute to my team. With the goalkeeper’s coach, Feđa Kulagić, we work hard to control the ball with the leg, as well as technique of receiving and adding the ball, that is everything that a modern goalkeeper must know.”

Regarding the top goalkeepers, Pirić does not have a role model, but in terms of the styles of the game, he separates a few of them:

“I like a playing of Manuel Neuer, Marc-Andre, then Stegen, David de Gea, and I mostly try to get something from each goalkeeper what I like and what I can apply.”

Pirić says about the domestic championship and expectations:

“We are a team that lost neither one match in the last eight rounds. This gives us some confidence and, of course, like every player, I would like to win the title. It will be difficult, because the players of “Željezničar” surely have the same expectations, so it will be uncertain to the very end. Široki is neither written off; now every match is derby, so I think the title will be won by the team which is better in those derbies.”