ST. LOUIS — The whiteboard propped on the sidewalk read “Sretno Zmajevi,” or Good Luck Dragons, referring to the nickname for the Bosnian national soccer team. And the message rippled down the street.

A semitruck trailer painted with the blue, yellow and stars of the Bosnian flag sat in a parking lot, and music bumped from speakers nearby. People milled about the street in blue-and-yellow jerseys and scarves. An old restaurant that closed down because of a kitchen fire had been converted into an apparel shop selling hats, vuvuzelas and all manner of Bosnian fan mementos. Conversation was loud inside Coffee Bar Skala, where smoke filled the air under a disco ball that rattled from the Bosnian country music set to a techno dance beat that vibrated through the dim, narrow space.

Bosnia has yet to kick off its first World Cup appearance, but the atmosphere along this thoroughfare in the hours before a recent tuneup against the Ivory Coast had all the energy one might expect in a Sarajevo street fair. Except this was not Sarajevo, nor was it anywhere close. This was about a mile-long stretch in St. Louis known as Little Bosnia, a place that seems more Eastern European than Midwestern America.

“There’s pretty much three places in the world where you want to be right now,” said Akif Cogo, 30, a native Bosnian who immigrated to St. Louis in 2001. “One is Brazil. Second one is Bosnia itself, because of the sheer number of people. The third place is definitely St. Louis.”