A Letter to the Children of Bosnia

Za verziju na bosanskom jeziku kliknite ovdje.

Dear children of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 

I have just one message for you. 

Nothing is impossible. 

Nothing. 

We are lucky to be Bosnian. I’m not just saying that as a man who got to live his dream, but as a boy who survived the war, and who could very easily have had a different fate.

I don’t like to talk about the Siege of Sarajevo, but it’s important for you to understand what it was really like. I was six years old when it began. I remember when the first sirens went off, and my mother grabbed me and we hid behind the shoe cabinet. That was day one. It went on for four years. We didn’t fully understand what was going on, but every single day, we were terrified. When our house became too unsafe for us to stay, we moved to my grandparents’ apartment. I think it was maybe 40 square metres. There were 15 of us — cousins, aunts, uncles — all sleeping on the floor. 

We used to play Monopoly. Do you know this game? It was dangerous to go outside, because snipers had surrounded the city, so me and my cousins would sit on the floor by the balcony and play for hours. We would hear the sirens and the bombs. Sometimes the ground would shake, and the Monopoly pieces would end up all over the floor. 

But whenever we played, there would be these little moments when we got lost in the game. For a couple of minutes, we would forget about the war.

We’d forget that the world was falling down around us.

For just a moment, we were allowed to simply be kids.

We really wanted to play football outside. Every day we saw innocent people get carried into ambulances. But how do you lock a child inside for four years? You cannot, and our parents knew it. Every once in a while, when it seemed quiet, my mother would open the front door, and I would go out to play with the other kids from the neighbourhood. 

I’ll never forget the look she would have when she opened that door. She had this faint smile, because she was so happy to see me play. And then I looked at her eyes, and I could see how worried she was that I would never come back.

All of us had to go out from time to time. We kept running out of water, so we had to grab these buckets and queue up on one of the streets to fill them up. The elevators were out. There was no power. So we walked. Third floor ..... 4th floor ..... six more to go. I must have been the fittest kid in Sarajevo. Food was also a struggle. Our parents risked their lives for it. But sometimes these boxes full of food would fall from the sky, as if by magic. We called them our lunchboxes. We didn’t know where they came from, and we didn’t care. They were military rations. To us, they tasted incredible. When you eat same things every day, peanut butter feels like a gift from the sky.

In the end, we survived. Looking back, I’m amazed at how strong we were. We were just little kids. But there was no point to the war. All those innocent people killed, and for what?

For money. Power. Ego. 

For nothing. 

When there is war on the news today, I feel sick.

I don’t want to see it anywhere.

For some reason, adults never learn.

I was almost 10 when the siege ended. I had no plan to be a footballer. 

It seemed so impossible that I did not even dream about it. You see, everything was destroyed. The grass pitches you see there today were burnt to the ground. I only kept playing football because I loved it. My father would take me to this sports hall at a school, where I would train for the first few months. Finally, they cleaned up the ground and began painting white lines on these fields of scorched earth. 

My father’s job back then was to deliver cakes and bread, but when I joined my first club, he would take breaks to drive me to training. On the way, he would tell me to be kind and treat everyone the same, no matter where they are from or what they do. I never forgot that. He had been a player in the lower divisions, and he was my hero. Every time I left the car, he would hand me a banana and say, “Good luck, son.”

On the weekends, we would watch football on the television together. (Which was a rare break from the daily Mexican telenovelas I’d watch with my mother.) Back then, Serie A was the best league. Have you heard of Shevchenko, the striker at AC Milan? I loved “Sheva.” I loved Italy. To me, it felt like a fairytale land on the other side of the world. To play football there, I could not even imagine. It seemed too unreal. All I was hoping for was to play for the senior team of my club, Željezničar. One of my coaches actually started calling me Sheva, because I was blonde and scored a lot of goals. I was like, Huh, I’ll take it.

Then one day when I was 19, another coach turned up and said he wanted to bring me to the Czech Republic. I didn’t want to leave Bosnia, but he told me that I’d have a better chance to fulfil my dream there. To be honest, I didn’t even know what my dream was. I just wanted to get better. I had this belief in myself. The strongest part of my body was my mind. When I arrived at Teplice, I told myself, Edin, you have to outwork these guys, or else they will send you away. 

They had bought me for 25,000 euros. 

About two years later, I signed for Wolfsburg. When we played Milan, I swapped shirts with Sheva. 

Then Manchester City signed me for 37 million. 

Then I joined Roma. 

I grew up with war. Suddenly, I was living a fairy tale. 

Nothing is ever impossible. 

Not even taking Bosnia to the World Cup.

Do you remember 2014? Most of you were probably not born yet. But when we qualified for our first World Cup, it was the greatest day of our lives. 

I remember we played the decisive qualifier at this old stadium in Lithuania, and when the referee blew the final whistle, a bunch of Bosnians started jumping over the walls to run out onto the pitch. But the walls were like two metres high, and they had to jump down onto the concrete. I remember turning around and seeing them all running towards us and thinking, My God, these guys are crazy. 

And then I saw one guy running a little slower than the rest. He was limping towards me with tears in his eyes. 

It was my father. 

I said, “Dad, what happened?”

He said, “I hurt my foot when I landed. But don’t worry. Right now, I feel no pain!” 

We just hugged and cried.

Unfortunately, luck was not on our side in Brazil. You won’t remember this, but I scored a goal against Nigeria that should have stood, and there was no VAR in those days, so we went out of our group. But at least our little country got to play at the Maracanã. At least we showed the world who we are. 

And now we are back.

You know what’s funny? I turned 40 years old in March, and I still have not celebrated. I’m a Muslim, and it was Ramadan, and then we had some business to take care of against Wales and Italy. So I thought, OK, I will make THIS my party. 

I remember when we were 1–0 down to Wales and I looked up at the scoreboard. 

85:00

Panic.

We’re running out of time. 

And then we got a corner, and this tiny guy was marking me, and I was like, Oh, great! I flicked the ball into the net, and just as I was celebrating, I remembered that I had been in four penalty shootouts in my career. I had lost them all.

Thankfully, our youngsters know how to take penalties. They don’t overthink stuff like us veterans. 

When we played Italy in Zenica, I was so scared of Donnarumma. He’s so big, you know? I’m honestly not sure if I would have scored against him in the shootout, but then I hurt my right shoulder in the final minute of extra time, and I had to go off. I didn’t actually watch our first penalty, because our trainer was still taping my arm to my chest. I was sitting on the bench, and all the coaches were blocking my view. When the ball went in, I heard the crowd roar, and I thought....

You know what? Maybe it’s luck. I won’t watch. I can’t watch. Let me just listen to the crowd. Let me listen to my people. 

Then Italy missed. The sound was so loud.

When they missed another, the sound was crazy. I was just praying and praying. All I could see was the backs of our coaches.

Then when Esmir stepped up to take the deciding penalty, our manager turned around and said, “I can’t watch either.”

He came over to me and locked me in a bear hug. We put our heads together and closed our eyes and just listened........

And then we heard the strangest sound ever. 

We heard Esmir strike the ball.

The crowd went, “Ahhhhhhh....”

Gigi got a finger to it.

The crowd went “Ohhhhhh….. ”

The stadium went silent for a moment. It was the longest millisecond of my life. 

And then ......... an explosion. 

Screams, flares, smoke and fireworks. People jumping around. Our entire bench ran out on the pitch. I hugged my coach even harder, looked to the skies, and then I let out the biggest scream of my life.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Like that for 20 seconds. 

Our little country was going to the World Cup again. 

Getting here was never easy. It’s still not when you’re 40, and your back is screaming the next morning, and you have to reach for the painkillers again. But every time my body wants to quit, I remember all the parties that I’ve missed, all the months I’ve spent away from my family, all the summer holidays I’ve dedicated to tournaments while my friends were off to sip cocktails on a beach. Mentally, it’s very hard. The criticism still hurts. But when I walk out on the pitch, I still feel like a kid, like one of you, with butterflies in my stomach and stars in my eyes. 

And every time, I come back to the same thing. 

It’s worth it. 

All of it. 

With no bad moments, the good ones never arrive. 

When we had beaten Italy, I went around to see some of my guys, the ones I had played with in Serie A. Then I went to find my family in the stands. I kissed my wife. I hugged my parents. Without them, none of this would have happened. 

That night, just being in Zenica was incredible. The more I’m away from Bosnia, the more I love it. It’s been 20 years now. Nine of them in Italy. My children were born in Rome. It’s still my second home. But every time I visit my parents in Sarajevo, and my mother is cooking, and everyone is there, I’m just so happy. Wearing this shirt, my heart beats in a different way. 

I’m playing for my people. I’m playing for the boys and girls in the streets of Sarajevo. I’m playing for all the different cultures and religions that make our country so beautiful, even if some people are still trying to break us apart.

They will never succeed. 

Not because of me. Not because of the adults. We never learn. It’s because of you kids.... You never change. 

So do me one final favour, OK?

Whether you live in Sarajevo, or Rome, or St. Louis.... Whether you are Muslim or Jewish or Catholic or Orthodox....

Never forget where you came from.

You are Bosnian. The world is at your feet.

Love you all. 

Yours sincerely, 

— Edin