Serbian Colo-Colo from ​​Sabac area: They beat stronger teams, then share crates of beer afterwards

We have been witnessing all kinds of things happen in Serbian football in recent years. There have been various stories, some under the veil of competitive football and professionalism, but there are also those beautiful and interesting ones, especially in amateur football, far removed from big money, where the game is still played to satisfy the soul. And for the beer after the game.

An interesting example comes to us from the Macva District, specifically from Zabar, a village in the vicinity of the town of Sabac, that has barely 500 inhabitants, and which last summer launched a local football club, FK Dobrava.

They started, of course, from the lowest tier of football competitions in Serbia - the Municipal League Sabac - the Pocerina Group Posavotamnava - the slang term for which is "the concrete league" - and after the first part of the season they led the table with 100% performance: seven wins and a goal difference of 30-6.

It is expected that starting next fall, Zabar footballers will play in the Inter-Municipal League of Pocerina, although the second-placed team and neighboring rival FC Korman has only three points less, so the race is still open.

However, what is Dobrava's trump card is its global popularity and the fact that this club quickly became known around the world, especially in South America. On Thursday night alone, the number of the club's followers on social networks jumped from a few hundred to 4,500!

The reason is the coat of arms they wear on their chests, which was modeled after the symbols of the Chilean great Colo-Colo, the former champions of South America, who became known in the former Yugoslavia as the opponent of Red Star in the Intercontinental Cup final in played Tokyo.

The coat of arms of the Chile's most successful club (32-time champions of this country) has since 1950 been adorned with the silhouette of Colocolo, a Mapuche warrior who led his countrymen in resistance to the Spanish colonial occupiers in the 16th century. The Zabar club's capian and our interlocutor Stevan Pantelic thought of the Chilean greats as inspiration during the launch of Dobrava.

FK Dobrava Zabar in Serbia's 4th tier has a very interesting logo that is clearly inspired by Chilean giants @ColoColo pic.twitter.com/mpVMpCkcxR— Serbian Football (@SerbianFooty) March 18, 2021

"When we decided to start a club, we formed a Viber group. There had been various suggestions, most often to have a frog in the coat of arms since we are from Zabar ("zaba" is the Serbian word for "frog"), but then I remembered that Colo-Colo played against Red Star, and I always liked the Indian from the coat of arms that they wore. And then, we too are a kind of "Indians" (i.e., the underdog) and that's how the coat of arms was created. Six or seven of us come to the club, we are hunters, so we took the coat of arms of Colo-Colo," the Dobrava captain told our portal.

Stevan, 28, is one of the oldest players in the team. In addition to his role of captain, he is also general secretary of the club. During the week, he works in a printing shop, and on the weekends, like others in the team, he draws lines on the pitch and sets up nets on the goals, the kind of things that club officials usually don't do.

He says that great enthusiasm and love of all members form the basis of everything that drives FC Dobrava forward, which is gaining more and more fans every day, especially in Chile.

"Unfortunately, Zabar is dying out as a village, there are no more than 100 households, so a few of us decided to start a club. There is also the coach Vlada Djurjevic, president Nemanja Tanasic, as well as one of the more experienced players Branislav Stankovic Mraza who have been in the club since day one," Stevan tells us.

As in any big club, Dobrava has its own operatives, people who are in charge of the normal functioning of the club.

"There is Mika Maric who, as the vice president, does everything related to bringing in players, while Miodrag Popovic and Mika Jankovic are in charge of finances and organization," Stevan, who playes as a striker, reveals.

Dobrava's best scorer is Uros Obrenovic with 11 goals, while our interlocutor scored 10 in the current season in the Municipal League Sabac.

"The 34 of us who are in the Viber group started the club. They are all young guys, mostly born in the 2000s, myself and the stopper, Nebojsa Djuric Sima, are the oldest in the team. Before us, there was FC Dobrava, which played the Serbian League West in 1989 or 1990, and later FC Zabar, but they all shut down. We couldn't even get their stamp, so we started from scratch last year."

Stevan notes that socializing is the basis of everything, although it's very difficult to keep an amateur football club alive only through membership fees and voluntary contributions.

"We love football, but we prefer hanging out after the game. Last week we played a friendly after which we drank as many as 11 crates of beer. It was a spectacle. People came with children, flares were lit, everything in this village came alive again thanks to our club.

We manage, we get by, no one is helping us. The municipality is not giving us anything, the local community has nothing to give, we mow the pitch ourselves, we buy the equipment ourselves... And the results are really to be proud of. Since the club was founded, we have not lost a single official game. We also played about 40 friendlies with higher-ranked clubs and we won most of them," Stevan boasted.

Dobrava also says that in recent weeks they have been constantly receiving messages of support from Chile on social networks, but that no one from the Colo-Colo club has contacted them yet. If contact is established, they say in Zabar, they would like to one day play a friendly match against the Chilean giant.

It would be the crowning achievement of an unusual journey and proof that anything is possible if you want it hard enough.

(Telegraf.rs)