Yugoslavia - 1920

The Yugoslav Olympic Committee sent an eleven-member team, i.e. its national football team that, on 20 August 1920, played its first international match at an Olympic tournament – ending it unsuccessfully. They lost to Czechoslovakia 7:0 (3:0) (scorers: Janda (3), Vaník (3) and Sedlášek).

The football squad made it to the list of Olympians almost at the last moment on the initiative of the Football Sub-federation of Zagreb, as the original intention of the Yugoslav Olympic Committee had been to send the track-and-field team to Belgium. The track-and-field qualifications were even held in Belgrade on 5 July, but the achieved results did not seem too promising for the Olympic scene.
The Yugoslav Football Federation, whose seat was in Zagreb, as it was that of the YOC (then the Yugoslav Olympic Board), made an official request that the national football team travel to Antwerp.
The request granted, all that there was left to be done was to procure 40,000 Belgian franks, a large sum of money for a country that had suffered heavy devastation in the war. Nonetheless, with the mediation of the Head of the Ministry of Education, famous playwright Branislav Nušić, the Cabinet yielded the necessary sum. It covered the expenses for eleven footballers, but not for the coaches, while the substitutes were not even considered, since the rules at the time did not allow substituting during the match – not even in the case of an injury.
As everything was done at the last minute (even the application for participation in the Games came in late) Yugoslavia’s Olympians arrived in Antwerp, after a journey of three days and three nights, on Friday afternoon. Their first game was scheduled for Saturday 10:00 am.
Against the dreaded Czechoslovakia, the major favourite of the tournament, the first national head coach doctor Veljko Ugrinić-Čiko fielded the only possible team: Dragutin Vrđuka, Vjekoslav Zupančić, Jaroslav Šifer, Stane Tavčar, Slavin Cindrić, Rudolf Rupec, Dragutin Vragović, Antun Dubravčić (captain), Emil Perška, Ivan Granec and Jovan Ružić.
There was, however, one “athlete” in the team. Namely, Jovan Ružić, one of the best footballers of the time, wishing to compete in the Olympic Games took place in the athletics qualifications and triumphed in the long jump and the triple jump, but in a twist of fate became an Olympic footballer.
The match with the Czechoslovaks started with a mishap. The best player Rupec suffered a serious injury in the 10th minute and the “blues”, playing in white shirts (with sewn-on three-colour flags instead of an emblem that the newly founded country still did not have), remained a man short till the end of the match.
The goalkeeper Vrđuka’s excellent defences were not enough to deflect a serious defeat, especially because all players got tired in the second half, partly due to the arduous journey, partly to the fact that were a player short.
Czechoslovakia won 7:0 (3:0) commencing a winning streak in which they defeated the Norwegians (4:0) and the French (4:1) and were checked only in the final match. They were playing against Belgium, the host of the Games, but England’s referee Lewis and his questionable judging made the Czechoslovaks leave the pitch in the 38th minute of the match. They were disqualified, subsequently losing the medal.

The first Yugoslav national football team: Rupec, Ružić, Dubravčić, Perška, Tavčar, Šifer, Vrđuka, Vragović, Cindrić, Granec, Zupančić