Bosnia: World Cup flowers and dragons | World Cup 2026

When Bosnia and Herzegovina qualified for the World Cup, contagious excitement spread throughout the country. It was more than just the heat of the ball.

Thirty years after the end of the war, after surviving the genocide and the now famous Dayton Accords, we have returned to the US territory to show that we can begin to dream beyond the terrible destruction, which made us destroy politics and left our country in trouble.

Indeed, football has brought out the essence of what it means to be Bosnian: we are very soft and very strong in our lives, we do our best in adversity, but we are strong in peace. We are wolves, but we are also lilies.

On June 24, when our team beat Qatar and won for the first time in its history, the country was happy. It was not just an overwhelming joy but a sense of freedom and unity. We Bosnians may thrive on conflict, disagreement and self-control, but boy, do we love this heady country. And we love those blue boys.

The great blue-clad crowd not only took the streets of Seattle and Sarajevo, but every city and town in the world where Bosniaks live. Even Bosnians on vacation in exotic places had viewing parties in hotels and took other tourists out into the streets to sing in celebration.

In Republika Srpska, those in power have supported the Bosnian team’s opponents in the past. But this time, many people did not fall for the hate and celebrated at home in front of the TV. Some dared to show their joy in public.

In neighboring Serbia and Croatia, people also mocked ethnic politics and openly celebrated with Bosnians, sending messages of support for our group on TV.

Images of Bosnian fans marching in the streets of Canadian and American cities were heard around the world. Before the match against Switzerland, a crowd of Bosnian fans surprised the locals when they marched through a popular neighborhood in Inglewood, chanting “Palestine! Palestine!”.

Between songs, the fans sang. But these were not national pride songs as we often see in such events. It was not a song prepared by big stars especially for the World Cup. No, this was an old song that was attached to the game, and it really reflected the country’s sentiments.

The first is a satirical song by the famous group Dubioza Kolektiv, “I’m from Bosnia, take me to America,” a song that cuts to the heart of the illusion of the American dream and asks Bosnians who dream easily to dream other dreams, big dreams, dreams of the motherland. Funny and nostalgic. Fun and kind.

The second song, which is the biggest, is a love song by the late singer Halid Bešlić, “Poljem se siri miris ljiljana.” This is a soft and very happy heart song, which translates as follows: “The smell of flowers is spreading in the garden, the flowers smell like my lover.

Yes, our country was at war 30 years ago but we are not singing “we-are-the-winners”, “crush-em-all” war songs.

This doesn’t make sense. This is so out of left field. Our choice of music is a testament to how we see ourselves: we are tough and we have battle scars, but we laugh at everything (especially about ourselves) and we sing with love.

We call ourselves Dragons, after the famous Bosnian warlord and rebel Husein Gradaščević (1802-1835). But we also call ourselves flowers, as in Bešlić’s song.

We were supposed to be wiped out, but we survived and became the seed. This is why, in addition to the official blue-yellow-spangled star flag, you see white flags with a golden coat. The white flag is that of independent Bosnia, the flag that we survived, and under which they were welcomed to the United Nations.

One flag was united, another bad thing – like Dayton, like the national anthem, which was accepted to be silent after our leaders who are involved in ethnic politics could not come up with unifying texts.

But we are not speechless people. And you see it in the World Cup. You hear us singing about the flowers and you see them blooming on the football field.

Apart from old stars like Edin Džeko, ours is a small team. Half of the players are young men born to immigrant parents far away from the heartland.

These are children who were not born to exist, whose parents were hunted down and deported. Now he’s walking the green fields of Seattle like he’s playing in the swamps of Bosnia.

They fight, but they don’t fight dirty. That goal in the game against Qatar is Kerim Alajbegović, who just made it list of youngest goal scorers at the World Cup, it was a work of art.

It reminded me of the graceful but dangerous penalty that Esmir Bajraktarević scored to knock four-time World Cup winners Italy out of qualification. It’s hard to revisit that goal without considering how incredibly symbolic it was: the son of genocide survivors from Srebrenica, born and raised in the US, a member of a new generation of golden roses. The young Bosnian American will now play against his second country, the US, on July 2nd.

In one place, with multiple goals, these guys broke all the bad political rhetoric that seeks to divide and protect the power of corrupt people. They are Edin, Esmir, Jovo, Ermin, Kerim, Martin, Osman, Sead, Dennis, Tarik, Nihad, Stjepan, Nidal, Amir, Benjamin, Armin, Dženis, Ermedin, Samed, Haris, two Nikolas, two Ivans, and two Amars. And the teacher is Sergej. Many don’t play in big clubs. It’s not expensive (yet). They are here to stay.

Help them plant the seeds. Watch the next game. Watch a little bit of their own game. Make them happy. And sing along.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.