World Cup 2022 race: Ranking the fastest emerging football nations right now

Northern Ireland has been on the rise in recent years
Northern Ireland has been on the rise in recent years

#1 Bosnia-Herzegovina

Dzeko celebrates a goal for Bosnia
Dzeko celebrates a goal for Bosnia

Confederation – UEFA

Current FIFA ranking – 35

Rising from the ruins of the Yugoslavian war that ravaged much of Eastern Europe, Bosnia-Herzegovina deserves much praise for all it has been able to achieve in recent years.

Most of the current ‘golden generation’ of players are children a war generation, who got scattered throughout Europe at the height of the bloody war (most of it was centred in Bosnia), and only returned less than two decades ago to start the rebuilding process.

The country has been blessed with a fantastic crop of players from the end of the last decade, and this concordantly saw an upturn in their fortunes on the field, with The Dragons narrowly missing out on qualification for both the 2010 World Cup and 2012 EURO, as they fell to Portugal in the playoffs for both tournaments.

They finally got the reward for their steady progress, when they topped their qualifying group for the 2014 World Cup, thus guaranteeing their participation at their first ever major tournament (where they suffered a group stage exit), before suffering another playoff heartbreak – this time to the Republic of Ireland in the EURO 2016 playoffs.

Under coach Robert Prosinecki, and led by world-class players Edin Dzeko and Miralem Pjanic, their progress has continued, and they finished top of their Nations League group, thereby gaining promotion to rumble with the big boys in League A, as well as qualifying for the League B playoff spot for EURO 2020, and the smart money would be on them making a major impact at the European showpiece.

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Edited by Aaditya Narayan
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