Last year Slovenian football reached its peak. Slovenia
entered the world football championship. At the end of last
year Slovenian football got another recognition. This time,
as a year before, it was rewarded by "Društvo športnih
novinarjev Slovenija". It pronounced the national
football team for the best team in collective sports and
Zlatko Zahovič for the second best sportsman of the year in
Slovenia. They got these rewards mostly because of the good
games they played in the European championship, (and good
shows of our best shooter). After Euro 2000 we thought that
was all we could get. It seemed impossible that we could
achieve even greater results in the world-class league
because we are such a small football nation: to be able to
get on the world football map, where there's only room for
the best 32 countries.
Slovenian football team managed to get in the finals of the world championship 2002 in Japan and South Korea with a fantastic average of eleven straight games without a single loss. Players of the Slovenian national football team are: Simeunovič, Milinovič, Galič, Vugdalič, Karič, Ačimovič, Pavlovič, Zahovič, Novak, Rudonja, Osterc, A. Čeh, N. Čeh, Gajser... and their coach is Srečko Katanec.
| At the stadium this
spectacular achievement was greeted by a few
thousands of the biggest fans, and also at home in
Slovenia everybody was in front of television ready
to give everything for a win. On their return home, they were greeted by fans on Brnik at midnight, people were screaming "NE DAMO SREČKA!". Next day players came to Bežigrad. There were a lot of football fans. Kreslin, Predin, Lovšin and all the fans sang Slovenian football national anthem " SLOVENIJA GRE NAPREJ!" We wish a lot of luck and a lot of interesting games to our players, and we hope they will bring many wins from South Korea and maybe become the world champions. |
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Written by: Saška BREGAR, Sara TAMŠE, Kaja VOLK
