The Bosnia and Herzegovina national football team will play its first match at the World Cup on Friday (21:00) against one of the tournament hosts, Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahead of the match in Toronto, the captain and best player of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Edin D\u017eeko, addressed the public with an open letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team leader shared his message to children in his homeland via \u201cThe Players\u2019 Tribune\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are publishing excerpts from Edin D\u017eeko\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDear children of Bosnia and Herzegovina,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I want to tell you something important. Nothing is impossible. Absolutely nothing. We are lucky to be Bosnians and Herzegovinians. And I\u2019m not saying this only as a man who achieved his dreams, but as a boy who survived war and could very easily have had a completely different fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t like talking about life during the siege of Sarajevo, but it is important so you understand what it was really like. I was six years old when it all began. I remember the first sirens; my mother would grab me and we would hide behind the shoe cabinet. That was the first day. It continued for the next four years. We didn\u2019t really understand what was happening, but every day we were scared. When it was no longer safe to stay in our house, we moved into my grandfather and grandmother\u2019s apartment. It was a small apartment, maybe forty square meters, and fifteen of us slept on the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We often played Monopoly. You know that game? It was too dangerous to go outside because snipers were lurking everywhere, so my cousins and I would sit on the floor by the balcony for hours playing Monopoly. I can\u2019t say it was fun. We weren\u2019t happy, we couldn\u2019t enjoy the game. Outside, sirens and explosions could be heard. Sometimes everything shook so much that the pieces would end up scattered all over the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But every time we played, those were small moments when we could escape into our own world, even just a little. For a few minutes we would forget the war. We would forget that the world around us was collapsing. For a moment, we could just be children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, we often wanted to go outside and play football, but every day we saw wounded and dead people being taken from our neighborhood. Still, how do you keep a child who longs to play locked inside for four years? It\u2019s impossible, and our parents knew it too. Sometimes, when the day was a little calmer, my mother would open the door and I would go outside to play with children from nearby buildings. I will never forget the expression on her face when she opened that door. She had a slight smile because she was happy to see me playing. And then I would look into her eyes and see how worried she was that I might never come back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n