They had a golden generation of players which is very rare for a small nation. I wouldn't call it a downfall, just a return to the mean.
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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Agreed. Ive been living with this being Australian since the magical 06 WC. Though our population is 10x bigger, football has only recently started to compete with Australian Football amd Cricket for youth participation.
Our last WC was better but we also had some luck. That 06 team would slap our current side.
But the problem is that we haven't reverted to the mean, we are far below it. The only teams showing worse football than Bosnia in the last few years are Andorra, San Marino and Gibraltar. We were in pot 2 for qualifiers, but currently sit in 5th place in our group. In the last 5 games (excluding Liechtenstein) we have scored 0 goals and conceded 13.
We still have a solid player base in the likes of AC Milan, Ajax, Fenerbahce, Atalanta, Red Bull Salzburg and others, so this is unacceptable and definitely a massive underperformance.
Shocking downfall? I would rather say it was shocking they qualified for a WC. They were better than usual with Pjanic and Dzeko carrying them, it's logical they would decline with Pjanic and Dzeko retiring/getting old. You can't just replace Dzeko. He scored 65 goals for the NT, these stats are not from this world
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