DIN DŽEKO was six when the war

began in Bosnia, his homeland. As

Sarajevo was besieged by Serbian

troops, his parents’ house was

destroyed, so he went to live with

his grandparents, the whole family – a dozen people,

sometimes more – living in an area of around 35

metres square, the equivalent of two small rooms.

During the four-year siege, football provided a

release, but it also brought life-threatening dangers.

At least 1000 – some estimates say as many as 3000

– children were killed in the conflict.

Hajro Bojadži was a coach who used to take teams

to compete in futsal tournaments. “Džeko was one of

a small group of kids I’d take to play in tournaments

held in school gyms during the war,” he recalls. “We’d

walk many kilometres, going from houses to other

places under cover to avoid snipers. It was a very

dangerous time, but though the boys were always

hungry they played with huge smiles on their faces.”

Džeko’s mother, Belma, hated letting her son out

of her sight, and recalls how close he once came to

death. “Every time Edin went out I felt afraid,” she

says. “I know it was crazy, but I couldn’t forbid him to

play. He was just a kid. There was one time when he

begged to go out, but I had a strange feeling and said

no. A few minutes later a bomb hit the playground. A

lot of kids died that day. We were often hungry and

thirsty, but that never stopped him playing.”

Inevitably, the war left its mark on Džeko. “It was

awful,” he said. “As a kid for four years I lived in fear of

losing my life or of a member of my family or a friend

being killed. But that was 15 years ago and we have

to look to the future. War made my everyday problems

seem much smaller and when it is hard sometimes,

I just remember that it could be much worse. But, I

have to say, I’m trying not to think about war.”

It hardly compares to life under the siege, of

course, but Džeko’s early days in football weren’t

easy either, and perhaps the sense of perspective

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61 FOOTBALL+

Edin Džeko

came up the hard way,

surviving the war in Sarajevo

to become a big-money

signing with Manchester

City. Jonathan Wilson

meets the humble

Bosnian striker

Edin Džeko interview

A tale of two cities“As a kid I

lived in fear of losing my life or a family member being killed. War made my everyday problems seem smaller . . . when it is hard sometimes, I remember it could be much worse”

62 63 FOOTBALL+FOOTBALL+

he’d developed helped him through those first years.

His father took him to Želježnicar, one of the two big

Sarajevo clubs. Its stadium stands in Grbavica, which

lay on the frontline during the war, and the first thing

players and officials had to do when the siege was

lifted was to clear the pitch of mines.

His first coach was Jusuf Šehovic. “Edin was 10

years old when I started working with him,” Šehovic

says. “We worked in a half-destroyed stadium, in

terrible conditions, but those kids had a great will to

work. I never forced Edin to attack, but he decided to

try, and with his skills and height it was his destiny. He

was serious at every practice, and he stood out in his

generation. That is what opened the doors of the first

team, and later got him to the Czech Republic.”

At the time, that move from Želježnicar to Teplice

seemed a baffling one. He had made his first-team

debut as a 17-year-old, but his style of play was alien

to a football culture that prized technical over physical

attributes and fans nicknamed him ‘Kloc’, the local

slang for a lamp post. “When I put Džeko in the squad

for a first time, some colleagues called me crazy,”

remembers Nikola Niki, who was Bosnia’s Under 19

coach at the time. “They asked me why I’d called up

this useless guy, and I said that he had the capacity to

become great player. Nobody believed it.”

When Teplice offered €25,000 (A$33,000) for

him, one of Želježnicar’s directors admitted “we

thought we’d won the lottery”. Two years later he

joined Wolfsburg for €4m (A$5.3m). He was still raw,

but, in Germany, Felix Magath moulded him into the

devastating forward he became in the Bundesliga.

“The secret? Hard work,” says Džeko, who turns

25 this March. “And more hard work. When I got to

Wolfsburg, in my first season, I didn’t score with my

head. Magath decided to work with me on that for

whole summer. And of course I was much better.”

His last two-and-a-half seasons at Wolfsburg

brought 58 goals and 31 assists, a record that

suggests both his effectiveness and his unselfishness,

which might yet prove his greatest strength as he tries

to carve out a career in the Premier League with a club

Stephen Ireland described as “a viper’s nest of egos”.

IN 1972, Rodney Marsh joined a Manchester City

side that was four points clear at the top of the

league. By the end of the season, they had slipped

to fourth. Marsh himself has suggested his style of

play didn’t gel with that of his teammates; some of

his teammates have suggested it was his personality

that was the disruptive factor; but either way, Marsh

has become the byword for a player who, for all his

gifts, unsettles a team that had previously looked on

course for success. Faustino Asprilla followed the

paradigm after he joined Newcastle in 1996-97 and

found his goals insufficient to prevent a 12-point lead

being squandered. And, inevitably, whenever any new

forward arrives at City midway through a season the

question is asked: is he another Rodney Marsh?

Usually the question is fatuous, given City have

rarely been anywhere near glory since 1972, but this

season a title challenge was, for a while, credible.

When Džeko joined them for £27m ($42m) from

Wolfsburg at the end of the first week of January, City

trailed Manchester United by two points. Within a

month that gap had grown to eight as City picked up

just four points from their first three games with Džeko

in the side (although he was named the club’s player

of the month for January).

With Džeko’s arrival came the need for a tactical

realignment within the team. Perhaps it was not the

best moment, coming as City, a club throwing plenty

of money at the challenge in front of them, appeared

to be finding some sort of rhythm after a stuttering

start to the season. Unfortunately the player most

affected by the need for a new system was Carlos

Tevéz, probably City’s stand-out player this season.

The move may make long-term sense, but in the

short term its effect was to knock City out of their stride.

So how did things change? Previously Tevéz had

operated as a false nine, dropping deep and linking

with the midfield three, leaving a vacuum into which

the wide men – two of David Silva, James Milner,

Adam Johnson and Jo – could drift.

Džeko is more of a fixed point; he can pull wide,

and he is certainly not the old-fashioned target man

some portraits have suggested, but he is nowhere

near as mobile or as comfortable linking play as

Tevéz. His inclusion has meant Tevéz playing to his

left, but with the Argentinean’s tendency to go looking

for space – the very quality that made him so effective

as a false nine – City have, on occasion, been left

short of width. In time, an accommodation probably

will be found – particularly given that Tevéz’s drifting

infield should open space for Aleksandar Kolarov, a

naturally attacking left-back. Džeko is gifted, intelligent

and, perhaps most importantly, relatively free from

ego. And that is where he really departs from the

Marsh template: his arrival may have disrupted City’s

tactics but his reputation is as a thoroughly likable

man, decent and helpful, and free from the aloofness

that makes so many footballers such difficult people

to deal with.

Certainly my own experience of him backs that up. I

was interviewing him once on the terrace of a hotel just

outside Sarajevo before a World Cup qualifier between

Bosnia and Turkey when after about 10 minutes he was

called away by the press officer. I thought that would

be the last I saw of him, but he returned apologetically

explaining he’d had to have his photograph taken

with the prime minister. A local journalist told me of

a time he’d popped in unexpectedly to visit Džeko at

Wolfsburg. A big VW conference meant there were no

hotel rooms to be had, so Džeko handed over the keys

of his flat and spent the night at his girlfriend’s.

Plenty of footballers who’ve grown up in crushing

poverty have rapidly sealed themselves inside the

gilded bubble, so it may be that Džeko is just a good

bloke by nature.

“I really don’t need luxury,” he says. “I’m just a

regular guy, I have a lot of friends and love to spend my

time with them. In my time in Teplice there were days

that I didn’t have enough money, but that’s normal for a

young player away from home.

“I think I’m not different than I used to be as a kid,

playing in Sarajevo. I try to have good relationship

with fans, anyone who wants a photo or autograph,

I do my best . . .”

Džeko may or may not be a success at City, but if

he fails, it won’t be because of his ego.

“His arrival may have disrupted City’s

tactics but he is a thoroughly likable

man, decent and helpful, and free

from the aloofness that makes many

footballers difficult to deal with”

Džeko was hugely successful during his time with Wolfsburg

in Germany