Örebro 0-0 FK Sarajevo July 14th 2011

 As it panned out the last game of the Scandinavian tour was the game closest to where my base in Sweden was. Orebro while I was in Scandinavia were on a disasterous run of form that included defeats to Djurgarden, Mjallby and Elfsborg home and away. They qualified for the Europa League by finishing 3rd last term and this was their first game in European competition for 14 years. Their opponents, FK Sarajevo as the names suggests are Bosnian. FK Sarajevo were tricky opponents for Orebro especially since a high number of Bosnians live in Orebro and the surrounding areas.

 What also made this game interesting was that Orebro were in dire form and that their opponents were getting prepared for their season. I expected a tense and tight game. The kick-off was 19:00.
The game kicked off with FK Sarajevo maintaining possession for long periods. They played the ball mostly on the artificial turf which surprisingly they adapted too. The visitors also had a new coach in Czech Jiří Plišek, so I wasn't sure what to expect from them.
Orebro took a while to settle and once they did they wanted to get the ball out to the wings and use the pace and trickery of Valdet Rama. Rama being an Albanian-Kosovar with a bag of tricks. He always looked dangerous by cutting in and heading for the by-line but the game was turning out to be cancelled out in midfield.
 The vocal traveling support were making the most of their trip with singing and flares lighting up the away section. There were anumber of visiting fans in the main stand too and were desperate for an away goal to take back to Bosnia.
The game was fizzling out and in the second half despite some improvment in the number of shot was still lacking the final finish.

 The hosts were getting frustrated with the poor finishing and having never won a game in Europe it was looking like extending.
The game ended in a 0-0 shut-out draw and no doubt that FK Sarajevo were the much happier. They did eventualy go through by winning 2-0 at home the following week.
After the game I called a taxi and headed home to pack for my trip back to Ireland.