How Far Could Yugoslavia Have Gone in the 1994 and 1998 World Cup?
After a strong 1990 World Cup where Yugoslavia reached the quarter finals, losing to winners West Germany, a likely golden generation was destroyed by a civil war that would see them suspended from international competition.
Because of Serbian-led aggression against Bosnia-Herzegovina within Yugoslavia, the United Nations imposed sanctions in May 1992 and it meant suspension from all international sporting competition. It then meant that they would be unable to participate in 1994 World Cup qualification.
It was unfortunate because Yugoslavia was somewhat of a super team, made up of the national teams of today that are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Slovenia. The golden generation in the making won the 1987 FIFA World Youth Championship led by superstars Davor Suker, Zvonimir Boban and Predrag Mijatović.
This golden generation was just starting to pick up some steam as they made the quarter finals of the 1990 World Cup losing to eventual champions West Germany. Yugoslavia were to participate in Euro 1992 as one of eight teams but because of the sanctions, they would be unable to participate. Denmark ended up replacing Yugoslavia who won 7 out of 8 games in qualification and Denmark would go on to sensationally upset Germany in the final 2-0.
It's unfortunate that we never got to see Yugoslavia in the 1994 World Cup. Yugoslavia would have been expected to top their qualification group which was made up of Greece, Russia, Iceland, Hungary and Luxembourg.
In the World Cup group stage assuming that they would have topped their qualification group, they would have faced Nigeria, Bulgaria and Argentina as opposed to Greece, and they would have very likely done better than them as the Greeks lost all three games and conceded 10 goals.
This group would have surprisingly been one of the best and most entertaining of the tournament. Three teams progressed to the knockout rounds in the old format. Bulgaria stunned everyone to beat Germany in the quarter-finals and would eventually lose in the semi-finals. Italy needed extra-time in the round-of-16 to beat Nigeria and Argentina were knocked out by a Gheorghe Hagi winner to miss out on the quarter-finals.
The 1994 squad that Yugoslavia would have sent would have been phenomenal. The core from the 1987 Youth World Cup winning side was dangerous. Davor Suker represented Croatia after the split and scored 45 goals in 69 games for Croatia. Zvonimir Boban played alongside Suker for Croatia and at club level played for AC Milan where he won the 1994 Champions League.
Serbia and Montenegro was effectively playing under the name FR Yugoslavia after the split and Predrag Mijatović was making a name for himself making the move to Spain in 1993 and would play for Real Madrid a couple years later.
Dragan Stojković is one of the best players in Yugoslav and Serbian history but he did face injury troubles. Dejan Savićević was also one of the best attacking midfielders in the world in his prime and represented FR Yugoslavia 56 times and scoring 19 goals.
The potential for Yugoslavia at the 1994 World Cup was high, but let's stay they topped their group, they'd still need to contend with Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Brazil if they were to win. It's very hard seeing how they could have beaten a Brazilian team with the form Romario, Bebeto, and Dunga was in.
A united Yugoslavian would have won the 1998 World Cup! Seriously.
Take all the talent I've just spoken about. Croatia would make it to the semi-finals and finished third after losing to hosts and eventual winners France. Suker won the golden boot after scoring six goals and was supported by stars Slaven Bilić and Robert Prosinečki. Bilić was playing in the Premier League and was voted best defender in the Bundesliga a few years earlier. Prosinečki starred for both Barcelona and Real Madrid during his career.
FR Yugoslavia - effectively Serbia and Montenegro - made it to the round-of-16 at the 1998 World Cup, losing to the Netherlands. Savićević was at Milan and Mijatović was at Real Madrid at this time. In fact, the majority of their squad was playing in Seria A or La Liga.
Since this potential golden generation, Croatia did manage to become runners-up at the 2018 World Cup with another golden generation starring Ivan Rakitic, Mateo Kovacic, Luka Modric. It makes me think again that a united Yugoslavian team would again have been good enough to win the 2018 World Cup.
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Wolfgang Sport started in 2017 as a way to connect my passion for American and British sports. Today it's evolved into a blockchain sports blog pushing the boundaries into the crypto world and embracing Web3 technologies.
I had heard about Yugoslavia and some people told they were amazing,
Yes some people told the same
I would agree that they would have had a very great chance to win this WC but it takes also some great luck at great daiyl form to win such tournaments. But I think they would have been the favorites, for sure!
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It's a good question that, they had some serious footballers at the time of the war.