Some great teams are designed, planned from the very first in painstaking detail; some are flung together, making a mockery of all notions of preparations. It was 20 years ago this summer that, almost blinking in surprise at themselves, the greatest youth team there has ever been swept to the World Under-20 championship in Chile.

In the build-up to the tournament, the Yugoslav Football Federation (FSJ) made no secret of the fact they were sending a team only to fulfil their obligation to Fifa. Their captain, Aleksandar Djordjevic, had been sent off in the final qualifying match in Hungary and banned for four games, and with Igor Berecko, Dejan Vukicevic, Igor Pejovic and Seho Sabotic injured and Boban Babunski left out because he was in dispute with his club over his contract, the FSJ also told Sinisa Mihajlovic, Vladimir Jugovic and Alen Boksic to stay at home on the grounds that they would gain more by playing league football.

The only journalist who travelled to the finals was Toma Mihajlovic, and even he was there mainly to report on the large Yugoslav ex-pat community in Santiago. Mihajlovic, who died earlier this year, was one of football's great anecdotalists, a man hugely generous with his time and memories. Chile 1987 he always recalled as one of his favourite trips. "Nobody had any expectations from the team," he said. "We thought they'd play the three group games and go home. But when they got to Chile those players found another face. They found a nice country and good accommodation in excellent hotels, and so many girls around..."

After heavy rain had forced the postponement of the opening ceremony, Yugoslavia beat Chile in the opening game 4-2, a victory of such fluency that a belief was ignited. It was here, Slaven Bilic always maintained, that the spirit that carried Croatia to third place in the 1998 World Cup was born. He was not there, sidelined by an ankle injury (although he never played for Yugoslavia at any level, perhaps because of his father's position as a prominent advocate of greater Croatian autonomy), but in that Yugoslavia team were Robert Jarni, Igor Stimac, Robert Prosinecki, Zvonimir Boban and Davor Suker, all mainstays of Miroslav Blazevic's squad 11 years later.

"The boys realised that if they won the second and third games they would be able to stay in Santiago," Mihajlovic said. And it was worth staying in. Mirko Jozic, the Yugoslavia coach, had a reputation as a disciplinarian, and tried to rein his players in, but Stimac had met the winner of Miss Chile 1987, herself of Yugoslav descent, and nothing was going to get in the way of his socialising. "There were no out and out fights," said Mihajlovic, "but there was constant friction between them. I was with the players most nights, and there was nothing wild. They stuck together and didn't drink, but they did stay in the clubs until three or four every morning."

Australia were dispatched 4-0 and Togo 4-1. Then Red Star decided they could do with Prosinecki for a Uefa Cup tie against Club Bruges, and attempted to recall him. The players protested to Fifa, and João Havalange, then the organisation's chairman, intervened to keep Prosinecki in Chile. He responded by bending in a last-minute free-kick winner against Brazil in the quarter-final. It was later voted the goal of the tournament.

Yugoslavia then beat East Germany 2-1 in the semi-final, but at some cost. Predrag Mijatovic was sent off and Prosinecki was booked in the last minute, meaning both would miss the final through suspension. A plot, clearly, for no Balkan victory is complete without a triumph over perfidy. The Australian referee, Richard Lorenc, it turned out, had had a major confrontation with the Red Star legend Dragan Sekularac, then coaching in Melbourne, only a year earlier. And hadn't the Australian coach, Les Scheinflug, who had been born in Yugoslavia of German parents, warned Jozic about him?

Well, perhaps, but if there really were a conspiracy, why let Yugoslavia win? Why wait until the final minute, when there could be no guarantee he would make a tackle, to book Prosinecki? None of it sounds very convincing, and if there were a plot it failed dismally. Boban gave Yugoslavia an 85th-minute lead against West Germany in the final, and, although Marcel Witeczek equalised with a penalty two minutes later, he went on to miss his kick in the shoot-out, giving Yugoslavia victory.

"The team stayed in Chile for two days afterwards to celebrate," Mihajlovic said. "It was Robert Jarni's birthday so there was a party for him. In the semi-final Dubravko Pavlicic had had two teeth knocked out by Matthias Sammer, so they invited the dentist who'd repaired them to the party and presented him with the match-ball. There was a real family atmosphere with the Yugoslav community there, and when they went home after three weeks everybody was crying."

And yet, celebrated as that 1987 team are, there is always the shadow of what if? What if the war hadn't happened? What if Jarni, Stimac, Prosinecki, Boban, Suker and Mijatovic had been allowed to blend with Mihajlovic, Jugovic and Boksic, as well as the players who were already established - Dragan Stojkovic, Dejan Savicevic and Srecko Katanec. "Then," Katanec said, "we would have crushed the world." Perhaps, but instead they had to watch as Denmark took their place at Euro 92, and won the tournament.