The Annoying Trumpets of Doom

While watching the Confederations Cup final last night and in the midst of all those trumpets (they are trumpets right?) tirelessly playing, a scary thought crossed my mind. What if we bottle it? What if we fail and instead of visiting South Africa come next summer, we end up watching the worlds most prestigious sporting event enjoying the cozy indifference the neutral spectator is blessed (or rather cursed) with. And the only buzzing sound we hear is coming from our modest TV speakers, rather then the real deal of being there, on the stands. Beer in one hand, remote in the other, and our red & white kit tucked away in the closet yearning for some merrier times. Just what would happen, if God forbid, we fail to qualify?

Here’s a scenario:

2009: Bilic is fired. Public is disgruntled. Markovic (acting HNS chief) is persecuted and found guilty along with his eternal sidekick Srebric. With the power seat now empty, Igor Stimac rides in in a white BMW and gains absolute control. Much to the delight of..well no one.

2010: With the World cup over and Croatia still in need of a manager, Stimac “reluctantly” decides it’s time for him to take this role as well. Despite his age, he names himself in his players list and goes on to captain Croatia through the next qualifying cycle. One in which we drew England, again.

2011: Croatia fails to qualify, losing to England twice and only managing to beat Faroe Islands. Twice.

2012: The public loses all faith, Stimac promises Croatia will bounce back. He dismantles the current squad and fires everyone. Cleaning ladies included.

2013: Disgruntled, the existing crop of players all retire from international football. With only 1 player in its roster, Croatia can’t enter the qualifiers and is disregarded by both FIFA and UEFA official bodies.

2014: With football in dissaray, people turn to other sports for inspiration. A new hope is born when a young boy by the name “Marin” goes on to win the world junior pole vault competition.

2016: Football is near forgotten as “Marin” grabs his first medal and is greeted as a bastion of hope of a once proud sporting nation. But, this is no fairytale.

2017: Igor Stimac, driven mad by power and years of solitude, goes berserk and during the young star’s pole vault run in, tackles the young man from behind, injuring him in the process and forcing him to an early retirement. People are in shock, Stimac is finally locked up. But the grin is still there, on his face.

2018: With nationwide depression at its peak, all sports have practically died out. What little interest there is is picked up by foreign scouts and taken overboard. The famous “98′ Vatreni” are nothing but a distant memory, a myth seldom spoken out loud by those who still remember.

2022: Croatia, with its people stripped of all passion and competitiveness, officially has zero representatives in the sporting world.

The end.

…

Kidding!

But that was rather depressing. Yet looking back on it, I for one am by our modern day footballing success. It’s astonishing that a country so small and of such poor league standard, has managed to qualify for pretty much every big tournament held in the last decade and a half (we just barely missed out on Euro 2000). It would perhaps be simply a case of law of large numbers if we skipped a major competition every now and then.

Could this be the year we miss out? Nah, of course not. We’ll grab that second place and just squeeze our way into the playoffs, where we’ll do just enough to see off our opponents and book a trip to South Africa for June ‘10. Yeah I think like this second scenario just a wee bit more.