English

Balkan beat the EU

The Minister of Mining and Energy of Serbia, Aleksandar Antic, has the honour to be a goalkeeper of the Balkan team and he was supported by the Serbian Prime Minister, Aleksandar Vucic, who cheered sitting in the audience.

“I do not play because I cannot play football. If they played chess I would certainly participate,” the Serbian PM excused his absence in the team ”Future EU”. Before the match, he was presented with a jersey with the number 11.

Before the match, Mr Antic expressed his belief that the EU team would win.

Although the Serbian minister explained that he had played football when he was younger and that he had never been a goalkeeper, he got the opportunity to show his quality as a goalkeeper at the beginning of the match, when he found himself face to face with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, who passed through the middle.

By a marvellous intervention, Mr Antic managed to force the Austrian foreign minister to shoot wide.

Members of the Balkan team also were the Macedonian Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, the Montenegrin Foreign Minister, Igor Luksic, his counterparts from Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hashim Thaci and Igor Crnadak. The team also included representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria.

The Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), Goran Svilanovic, was wearing a jersey with the number 10, the number belonging to the greatest football connoisseurs, such as Maradona, Pele and Dragan Stojkovic Piksi.

He justified the honour to wear 10 when made a sliding tackle playing in the defence, thus helping Antic to prevent a clear chance of the EU team, which caused a big applause.

The EU team was led by the Prime Minister of Slovenia, Miro Cerar, and the Austrian Foreign Minister, Sebastian Kurz.

The European Commissioner, Johannes Hahn, and the OSCE Chairman and the Serbian Foreign Minister, Ivica Dacic, were referees.

The player with the most football experience, Mr Gruevski scored a goal for the team of “Future EU” after Thaci’s assistance and the team went to a well-deserved half-time break with one goal advantage.

After the break, the same tandem increased the advantage to 2:0 for the “Future EU”.

Thaçi and Gruevski appeared to be a well coordinated duo.

In a solo raid, Bekim Çollaku, the Kosovo Minister of European Integration, checkmated the “EU” once more and the score was 3:0.

Antic occasionally called for caution and admonishing his teammates to return to the defence.

However a wrist injury forced the Serbian minister to leave the game after Johan Sattler, the Head of the Western Balkans Unit in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria, had scored the first goal for the EU for 3:1.

Mr Antic, who was replaced in goal by Mr Svilanovic, left the pitch causing the applause of the audience who praised his goalkeeper skills.

Svilanovic made two spectacular parades thus saving the goal of the “Future EU”.

Then Çollaku scored another goal, thus increasing advantage of the “Future EU” to 4:1.

At the very end of the match, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria, Michael Linhart, scored a goal and the final result was 4:2.

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