Bosnia and Herzegovina played an important World Cup qualifying match away to Cyprus on Thursday night. They went into the encounter third in their group, five points behind leaders Belgium and one point behind second-placed Greece. That meant that victory against Cyprus was almost a must.

The first half was largely even in terms of chances, with the visitors perhaps playing slightly better. But the result was radically different, as the Bosnians went two-nil up, just before halftime. Toni Šunjić and Edin Višća were the unlikely goal scorers.

In the second forty-five minutes, Cyprus took the initiative almost completely, while the team of Bosnia and Herzegovina seemed nonexistent. The star players, namely Edin Džeko, Vedad Ibišević and Miralem Pjanić, were nowhere to be found.

It therefore was hardly surprising that the punishment for this inactivity would soon follow. Dimitrios Christofi and Vincent Laban scored, making it 2-2 halfway through the second half. Unfortunately, that was still not enough to wake up the Bosnian Dragons from their slumber.

Pieros Sotiriou scored Cyprus’ game-winning-goal toward the end of the match. Then and only then did the visitors try to slowly make their way back into the game. But they did nothing to seriously frighten the Cypriot defense.

It remained 3-2 and one cannot possibly blame the result on the referee, on bad luck or perhaps a combination of the two, as was the case in the away game against the Greeks for example. Cyprus won fair and square on the night and is only a single point behind the Bosnians now.

Elsewhere in the group, Belgium demolished Gibraltar 9-0. This must have laid to rest even the most optimistic Dragon dreams about winning the group and thus qualifying directly for the World Cup.

Meanwhile, Estonia and Greece ended their encounter in a scoreless draw. While Greece failing to win means that second place is still in reach, the Dragons of Bosnia and Herzegovina are in serious danger of missing out on Russia 2018.