When members of the Bosnia and Herzegovina national soccer team play Panama in an exhibition match at Energizer Park next month, they won't have to worry about mustering a local rooting section.
About 200 excited soccer fans, most of them decked out in Bosnia and Herzegovinian blue, yellow and white, made a raucous scene under a tent outside Das Bevo on Monday evening during a pep rally to show their enthusiasm for the team. The crowd included dozens of children who play for the St. Louis Dragons youth soccer club.
Bosnia and Herzegovina's World Cup appearance has rallied St. Louis Bosnian Americans, who form one of the largest Bosnian communities in the world outside of Europe.
"I cannot honestly put into words how much joy (the World Cup qualification) brought to everyone within our community," St. Louis Dragons founder Elvir Kafedžić said after making brief remarks to the crowd from a small elevated stage. "With the passion that we have for the sport, to be able to come all together and be in person in St Louis, here at Energizer Park, and to live that passion as one — I think it's going to be something that we will carry for many years to come."
Kafedžić is also an assistant coach for St. Louis City 2, the Major League Soccer club's reserve squad.
Pep rally attendees munched on meatballs, egg rolls and chicken tenders. Parents sipped beers and talked over the relentless beats of Bosnian dance music.
Many in attendance have secured tickets for the June 6 international friendly at Energizer Park between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Panama. It will be the first time the Bosnia and Herzegovina team will have played in St. Louis since matches at the Dome at America's Center in 2014 and Busch Stadium the previous year.
The team will also make the city its pre-World Cup home base for about a week, as it trains in Midtown before scheduled World Cup matches in Toronto, Seattle and outside Los Angeles.
"This is a special opportunity to have this team be here, to have people experience this, especially those of us who settled here after the (Bosnian) War. It means so much. It means that we finally recovered after the war. That's what our community feels like right now," said Mersida Planic, who moved to St. Louis with her family in 1995 as a child.
Planic has tickets for Bosnia and Herzegovina's match against Qatar in Seattle on June 24.
Planic's child plays soccer with the St. Louis Dragons. "They're proud to be Bosnian as much as they're proud to be American," Planic said of the young soccer enthusiasts.
At one high-energy moment on Monday, members of the youth soccer club answered a call to storm the front of the space and sing along to "Take Me To America," a 2022 song by Salvatore Ganacci that prominently samples from Bosnian group Dubioza Kolektiv's "U.S.A." The song — whose chorus begins "I am from Bosnia; Take me to America" — has become a rallying cry among Bosnians who watched the national team surprise many in the soccer world by defeating Italy on penalty kicks to qualify for the World Cup.
Matches next month will mark just the second time the national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina has competed in soccer's premier competition; Italy has won the tournament four times.
Many members of St. Louis' Bosnian community are savoring every step of the national team's march to the World Cup.
"Every evening, before we go to bed, they watch the highlights of the penalty shootout," Salim Hamidovic said of his three children, who also play with the Dragons, "and I get goosebumps every time."
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