The FF BH Honorary President, Ivica Osim, is currently in Graz, Austria, where he regularly performs medical examinations.

The conversation began with questions about his health and then about a match that we all are eagerly waiting for.

“When you ask me about my health, so far everything is fine. I go to the controls; I take regular medicines and say that it is good for now. And while a man lives, he should not complain. It’s mostly good. I get to see some games of these younger categories. These matches do not bite me, they play nicely and the pitches are great. There are a lot of our kids here, so I watch to see if there’s any one we could miss. I’m slowly packing to come to Sarajevo for the match.

What I'm reading in the media about Belgium, when we make them absolute favourites and speak of them in eulogies, I think that it is good and it suits us, because we are known as great “stubborn”. This goes in our favour, because we can show that everything is not in a way the most people think. If Belgium has a good team and that they are strong, we know; but that we must win, we do not know. In my opinion, this campaign, made with a purpose that we have nothing to look for against Belgium, should be in our favour.”

In his coaching career, Osim had a large number of games that carried the prefix decisively. He knows very well what kind pressure is carried by the players and how to deal with it:

“In this situation, we all need to help the players. When I say everyone, I mean the media, psychologists. We need to know what the team will react on, whether on a grudge or on patriotism. How to initiate a revolt of players, so they can come to the situation to prove themselves again, to squeeze their teeth and to show that they are not the characters as they are considered. These are all important things that must be taken into account before this game.”

Ivica Osim is following the form of our players and as he says, it’s good that most of them play in their clubs:

“It’s good that most of the players play in their clubs, but it’s most important for me that they should come to the preparations healthy and alive, as I would say, that they come “normal”. When I say this, I think that they need to understand what we have reached, and should start thinking in a slightly different way. They need to know what is expected of them. They need to know that there are better than them, but that there are not many better ones to lose in advance. I am sure that we have our chance in this match, and let the Belgians think about it.”

We will host Belgium at “Grbavica”, a stadium for which Ivica Osim and head coach Baždarević are particularly emotionally connected:

“If our players do their best at “Grbavica”, as Meša is did while playing at that stadium, then we have nothing to worry about. It would not be bad for those, who surround them, to talk a little bit about it, to know how it is played there. It is not bad for the national team to return a bit to Sarajevo. I hope they will not mind me on what I said, but it’s not bad to change something. You never know where and when you can get something. Perhaps in this game, we recover the image of the team that bites on the field, which we had lost, whether they wanted to admit it or not. Let’s play this and then we’ll see, we will be smarter,” concluded Ivica Osim in his style.