Urban
Rebecca“Kdor ne skače, ni Sloven’c, hej, hej, hej,” echoed from 16,432 fans in Stožice last night! It means, “Whoever doesn’t jump is not Slovenian, hey, hey, hey …”
At this football stadium, Stožice, a record number attended the game last night. The fans cheered the Slovene football team to a 2:1 victory over Kazakhstan.
With this win, Slovenia qualifies for the European Championship!
Stožice was already sold out more than a month before the start of the final and decisive match of the qualifiers.
The energy was high since Slovenes have been waiting for over a decade to cheer their team in a championship.
The first Slovenian fairytale began to be written in 1999 when they made it to the European championships in Belgium and the Netherlands.
The same generation also went to the World Cup in South Korea and Japan in 2002, thus connecting the first and second fairytales.
The third followed in 2010 when they again made it to the World Cup in South Africa. At that time the selector was Matjaž Kek. Ever since then, Slovene football has died down. Many selectors have changed.
The Slovene team did not find a way out of the crisis. In 2018 Kek returned to the coaching bench. A team with character began to emerge. In recent years Jan Oblak has returned to the goal and has become a big star. The game was finally coming back together.
When the groups for qualification to the European Championship were drawn, the opponents were not the most difficult, so Slovenes grew hopeful.
The last piece to the puzzle was the addition of Benjamin Šeško, a new prodigy, to the Slovene national team. The 20-year-old is the team’s top scorer in these qualifications.
He also scored the decisive goal yesterday, when they took a 1:0 lead. With the goal of his namesake, Verbič, Ljubljana went wild in celebration.
5-minutni ognjemet dobra zameglil Stožice. Reprezentanca slavi na zelenici. Slavje se nocoj nadaljuje v navijaški coni pred stadionom, kjer je oder.
Proslava in uradni sprejem pa sledi jutri, v torek, ob 16.00 v središču Ljubljane.#SrceBije #Euro2024 pic.twitter.com/jgXdBDH2DL
— Toni Gruden (@duledoz) November 20, 2023
Next year the Slovenian football fans are expected to invade Germany!
Points to Consider
- Where do the most successful Slovenian footballers play?
- How big of a success is qualifying for the European Championship?
- Do you know any cheers for sports events?
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The original version of this article was published on 21st November.
Mateja
Romana
