"He said it was free."

"FREE?!"

"That's what he says..." Johannes, an Austrian who learned a bit of Serbo-Croat during the year he lived outside of Zagreb, pointed over to the old Serbian man who had pointed us towards the entrance, and shrugged. He was just as amazed as I was.

"How in the hell do they pay their players??" The American capitalist inside of me made sure that was the first thought that came to mind.

In Sarajevo, I'd gotten into the FK Sarajevo-Željo derby for less than three euros: Peanuts, I thought at the time (or pumpkin seeds, once I realized that those are what people in the Balkans take out to the ballgame). But after the news Johannes had just brought, in retrospect Sarajevo was beginning to feel like Monte Carlo.


Judging by the play of Partizan's keeper, I'd say they pay him with pumpkin seeds. He was terrible. In a 3-1 loss that was but a hit post and a missed header away from being a 3-all draw, this dude let what proved to be the game-winning score find the back of the net on a slow bouncer, a ball so easily playable that it would have lost in a foot race against a pint of molasses. He went in for the slide-pick up on what should have been a routine play, and what should have been a routine play then became a 2-o hole, from which his team could never recover.

The fans who actually showed up in the stands -- it felt like a Strake Jesuit high school game during the first half, minus the clouds of cigarette smoke and Orthodox chapel peeking its head above the stadium wall -- were not happy. Balkan folks are reknowned for their lack of, well, tact, so you can imagine the insults that were hurled his way. (Johannes isn't fluent in Serbian, but he knows the euphemism for pulling a Monica Lewinsky, and he was laughing almost the entire game at the loud grumblings from the pumpkin seed gallery).

Football in Beograde was nothing compared to my Sarajevo ... "experience." The security pat down was much more severe. The ban on flares was actually enforced. No one was smoking weed in the stands. I didn't hear a single song until the start of the second half. After hearing legendary stories about Serbian crazies who support the Belgrade club Red Star, I was ready for a riot. What we got was a stadium so empty, I kept waiting for Moises Alou, Pedro Martinez and Larry Walker to take the field, all ten years younger and looking fit for a Montreal crowd.


But at least I was warm in my new second-hand, "It's so ugly, it's cool" jacket, which I have affectionately named "B." (After the 'B' stitched onto the sleeve on a backdrop of wings).


After the final whistle blew, the floodgates of Balkan insults really opened. The Partizan coach, who is as bald as George Costanza, was mocked with cries of .... this is a family site. I can't actually say it. Just think of an animal that builds dams, and then picture if that animal decided he needed a new summer do, and bought a Mach 3. Johannes translated; I died laughing.


Of course, it all came together the next day as to why a game that was free still couldn't draw even a half-capacity crowd. It had nothing to do with the cold; it had everything to do with an organized boycott by Partizan fans of their team, due to philosophical differences with its management. The fans we had seen were scabs, replacement players. We had crossed the picket line without even knowing it. But at least we had learned some good Serbian slang in the process.