Football in the chaos of Yugoslavia

This book is the story of the end of Yugoslavia and its reconstruction, through and by football, from the 1980s to 2000. You will come across players who are familiar to all football fans (and many Yugoslav players have played in France), from Vahid Halilhodžic's mane to Zoran Vulic's moustache, from Safet Sušic's dribbles to Ivica Osim's tears, from Dragan Stojkovic's strokes of genius to Predrag Pašic's capture of Sarajevo's agony.

We will travel through a zombie-like country from Zagreb to Mostar, from Sarajevo to Banja Luka, from Belgrade to Pristina, from Zvornik to Srebrenica. We'll be looking at the role of football in the rise of these perils. How did supporters so easily become front-line soldiers on the battlefield? How did some choose to resist the established order through football?

This is an uncompromising account of the singular trajectory of a country that is both close to us and little known, about which we thought we knew so much but often didn't fully understand. Loïc Trégouresthrough the prism of the world's most popular ball game.