Yugoslavia victorious in Bosnia while Slovenian fans halt Italy friendly
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Mladen Krstajic and Darko Kovacevic scored a goal each last night as Yugoslavia beat Bosnia 2-0 in an eagerly awaited friendly watched by 10,000 fans in Sarajevo.
The Bosnian team started the match aggressively, dominating for the first few minutes, before Yugoslavia recovered their poise. Krstajic opened the scoring in the 34th minute from a pass from Sinisa Mihajlovic and Kovacevic, the former Sheffield Wednesday striker, took advantage of a defensive mistake to score the second goal for the visitors in the 41st minute.
After the break, Yugoslavia dominated and launched several dangerous attacks. Bosnia had few scoring opportunities.
It was the first match between the two countries in Europe since the break-up of the old Yugoslavia and the subsequent Bosnian war in the mid 1990s. "For both teams, this was more than just a friendly match," Bosnia's coach, Blaz Sliskovic, said.
Bosnian authorities deployed numerous police units because the match was considered to be a high security risk, but no incidents occurred during the game.
It was not such a peaceful night in Trieste. Slovenian fans clashed with Italian police at their side's 1-0 friendly win in Italy last night, after halting the game twice by launching smoke bombs on to the pitch.
The match was stopped in the 12th minute after a series of fireworks and smoke bombs were thrown by Slovenian fans into the penalty area occupied by Italy's goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and into a stand where Italian fans were based.
After Slovenia players made appeals to the supporters to stop, the game restarted but there was another interruption after Slovenia took the lead in the 32nd minute with a goal from Sebastjan Cimirotic and their fans launched more fireworks. Italian police then entered among the Slovenian fans and used battons as they attempted to restore order.
Slovenia's Zlatko Zahovic spent several minutes attempting to calm down the Slovenia fans after the half-time whistle blew. Trieste is situated close to Italy's border with Slovenia and several thousand fans had travelled from the former Yugoslav republic.
Ali Daei scored the only goal in Iran's 1-0 win over Ukraine in a friendly in Kiev last night.
Ukraine were without eight key players due to injury, including the Milan striker Andrei Shevchenko, who is out of action for two months.
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