The Bosnia and Herzegovina police were extremely protective of their country’s only port. So, upon receiving a tip-off and conclusive evidence, they immediately launched an operation targeting Harun.
Suk had no idea what kind of punishment would be dealt out. All he knew was that his coach was hauling him out of the police station.
Oripé was a massive man, weighing over 100 kilograms. At 175 centimeters tall, his bloated frame gave off the impression of a roiling sea.
He wore a blue tracksuit. Despite being a loose-fit style, it looked stretched and tight on Oripé’s body.
A whistle perpetually hung from his neck, a clear marker of his status as Head Coach.
Oripé was the coach of the Mostar Wanderers, the Bosnia and Herzegovina Second League team Suk played for.
Oripé dragged Suk to a street corner as if he were a scruffy kitten, then said furiously, "You gave me your word!"
Suk hung his head like a guilty child, remaining silent.
This only made Oripé even angrier.
"Speak up! Do you think I can still trust you?" Oripé fumed. "The police have issued a warning. If anything like this happens again, you’ll be deported back to Croatia. If you still want to play here, you’d better start behaving."
Suk’s head shot up, and he nodded frantically.
Looking at Suk’s youthful face, the anger in Oripé’s heart quickly faded.
In truth, Oripé’s heart went out to the boy, a young man stranded in a foreign land, chasing his dream of football.
With that, Oripé pulled Suk over and shoved him into a panel van. He then walked around to the driver’s side, got in, and started the engine.
Oripé started the van and said succinctly, "It’s game day."
Suk looked up, surprised. "We don’t have a match today!"
Oripé said nonchalantly, "The schedule changed."
Suk just nodded. In the Bosnia and Herzegovina Second League, it was actually quite common for the schedule to change. The financial situation of every team in the Second Division League was terrible, and the salaries they could offer players were low. To make ends meet, many players had to take on part-time jobs.
This was exactly Suk’s situation. After all, trying to play football while also making a living was an incredibly difficult task.
For most of the players, the reason they kept playing was simple: to escape the Second Division League. Their goal was to get promoted to the Bosnia and Herzegovina Super League or transfer to a team that was already there.
It was the only way out for those who were still hanging on.
Of course, there were also people like Kovic, who decided they couldn’t make a living from football and ultimately gave up to find other work.
While players in Europe’s top leagues were earning big money and chasing beautiful women, these players in the lower leagues were still struggling to get by.
You could say that football here was a sport of two extremes.
Only the handful of players who managed to cross that narrow bridge into the top leagues could truly experience the joy of professional football.
The panel van sped down the asphalt road. While steering, Oripé fished a crumpled ball of paper from his pocket and tossed it over.
"The guardianship application was approved. Sakovic won’t be bothering you anymore."
Hearing this, a look of delighted surprise spread across Suk’s face.
"It’s approved?"
Seeing how happy he was, Oripé couldn’t help but smile. "Yeah, it’s approved. So, you’d better score plenty of goals for me, kid. Then you can get that transfer to a Super League team."
Suk unfolded the ball of paper and read its contents. He then smiled, satisfied. "We’ll get promoted to the Super League together!"
Oripé smiled and didn’t speak.
"Still, you really don’t want to go back to Croatia?"
Suk shrugged. "I have no desire to go back and become a priest."
Oripé nodded. He understood.
This whole situation was tied to Suk’s past.
Suk was an orphan from a church in Croatia. He had been noticed by a churchgoer named Sakovic during an exhibition soccer match held at the church.
Sakovic was a youth coach in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He recognized Suk’s talent and wanted to train him.
After some convincing, he became Suk’s guardian in Bosnia and Herzegovina and brought him there for professional youth training.
The whole process went smoothly, and Suk performed very well.
The only problem, however, was his physique.
At age fourteen, it was as if Suk had stopped growing. His height simply wouldn’t shoot up.
By the time he was fifteen, his peers were already surpassing 170 centimeters, with some even reaching 180. Suk, however, remained a diminutive 150 centimeters tall.
This physique caused huge problems for the young center forward.
Confrontations on the pitch were completely one-sided. Despite Suk’s agility, in youth development, failing to meet the height requirement essentially got you labeled ’unqualified.’
Furthermore, Suk’s talent wasn’t so exceptional that Sakovic felt he could overlook his height.
Ultimately, Sakovic cut Suk from the youth academy roster and prepared to send him back to Croatia.
But the stubborn Suk chose to run away instead, eventually joining the Mostar Wanderers.
After a period of settling in, Suk performed exceptionally well. In the end, Oripé negotiated with Sakovic to take over his guardianship.
As far as Sakovic was concerned, all that mattered was getting rid of the troublesome boy.
The two came to an agreement almost immediately, and the entire process went very smoothly.
And Suk did not disappoint Oripé. He had scored 9 goals for the team last season, and in the current season, he was leading the top scorer’s chart with 8 goals in 11 matches.
It was hard to believe that a boy of only 150 centimeters could perform so brilliantly in the physically demanding Bosnia and Herzegovina League.
The van turned off the asphalt road and onto a mountain path.
The panel van bounced along, navigating a narrow dirt track as it pressed onward.
Soon, the surrounding tall grass gave way to a simple archway.
Two slender bamboo poles held up a banner with words written in Croatian: ’Welcome to Mostar Wanderers’.
That’s right, the Mostar Wanderers was a team made up of Croats.
Passing through the simple archway, a pitch enclosed by a waist-high fence came into view.
But it was less a pitch and more a pasture.
The turf was awful, with patches of sticky brown soil showing through. The goal nets on either side were in tatters, the holes tied shut with crude knots, making the whole thing look rough and makeshift.
Nearby, a herd of cattle grazed, their heavy breaths filling the air with a mixture of grass and cow manure.
Needless to say, the environment made most visiting teams uncomfortable. But for the Mostar Wanderers, this was the perfect home pitch.
Unlike their opponents, who were unaccustomed to the pitch, the Wanderers players knew it inside and out. They knew where every pothole was, which patches of grass were worst, and exactly where to pass to make the ball slow down. They knew it all.
When Oripé and Suk arrived at the pitch, a crowd had already gathered.
The market for the Bosnia and Herzegovina Professional League wasn’t great. Even some Bosnia and Herzegovina Super League matches struggled to draw 1,000 spectators. But for this match, nearly 150 Mostar Wanderers fans had shown up. Including the local residents who had come to watch, the crowd was over 200 strong.
The Mostar Wanderers were a Second Division League team, true, but their fan attendance was by far the best in the entire league.
Suk didn’t know the exact reason why, but they always had a lot of fans at every match.
Tickets were cheap at 30 Marks per match. You could even sneak in from somewhere else to watch for free.
But the fans who gathered here voluntarily pressed their ticket money directly into Oripé’s hands.
Oripé was busy collecting the money. Behind him stood a group of Mostar Wanderers players, Suk among them.
Suk sat on the ground and changed into a red-and-black striped jersey.
To be honest, Suk hated this jersey. The stripes were horizontal, which made it look like a prison uniform.
But it was their home kit, so they had no choice.
After putting on the jersey, Suk pulled his cleats out of the van.
They were a tattered pair of cleats. The leather at the toes was peeling off, and there were even a few holes, but they were still just about wearable.
Finally, he slid his shin guards into his socks and gave them a light pat.
In the Bosnia and Herzegovina League, shin guards were life-savers. Even Jack Grealish himself would have to wear standard shin guards here, or his famous calves would get hacked to bits.
Once he was all kitted out, Suk started making his rounds.
"Hey, Cap! Send me plenty of passes today!"
Suk first called out to a man in the number 10 jersey. He was the oldest on the team, looking to be in his mid-thirties.
His name was Ivan Milinar. At thirty-five, he was the team’s captain.
Mulinar was the most famous carpenter in all of Mostar Town. Just like his delicate handiwork, he also had excellent footwork.
Mulinar was the Mostar Wanderers’ creative playmaker, and he was the one who consistently fed Suk the ball.
The connection between Suk and Mulinar was, for all intents and purposes, the Mostar Wanderers’ main line of attack.
Mulinar, who was twisting at the waist to warm up, grinned at Suk.
He was very fond of his young teammate who always managed to find the back of the net.
After all, who likes to lose?
After greeting his captain, Suk turned and yelled in another direction, "Buckqi! Try not to let in so many goals today! Don’t make my job harder!"
Buckqi was the Mostar Wanderers’ goalkeeper, and he was a total sieve.
He fumbled every shot!
As Head Coach Oripé put it, all the other team had to do was shoot, and Buckqi would practically carry the ball into his own net.
As soon as Suk finished yelling, a bald young man shot to his feet, let out a roar, and lunged for him. But Suk dodged nimbly, and after a few quick jukes, he successfully faked out the bald keeper, sending the man named Buckqi stumbling to the ground.
This sent the whole group into a roaring fit of laughter.
While the Mostar Wanderers players were joking around, their opponents for the day, Sarajevo FC, watched them from the other side of the pitch.
Sarajevo FC. The name sounded impressive, but they were a bottom-tier club.
After all, most teams struggling in the second division were about the same. Their situation was similar to the Mostar Wanderers, but since they were a team from the capital city, their conditions were slightly better.
With both sides having finished their final preparations, they began going over their match tactics amidst the shouts of the fans.