Article by Daniel Grigore – Published Saturday, June 13, 2026, 08:22 / Updated Saturday, June 13, 2026 08:22
Bosnia and Herzegovina was forced to defend in a good part of the first match played at this World Championship, 1-1 with Canada in Group B. The heroic way the defense held out produced an extraordinary statistic that puts Sergej Barbarez's side in a select group.
Bosnia, a team that was Romania's opponent in the qualification group, started its journey from the World Cup against one of the host countries, Canada.
Jovo Lukic opened the scoring in the 21st minute, and in the second half the initiative belonged to the Canadians. In the end, possession (61%), xG (1.23 – 0.98), number of shots (13-8) and passes (310-172) were all on the side of the North Americans.
The Bosnians gave everything defensively, in some places they defended heroically – the phase in which Kolasinac rejected in the crossbar is eloquent.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of only 4 teams in World Cup history with 70+ disposals in a match
They finished the game with an astounding 71 rejections and entered a select group as one of only 4 teams to reach the 70 mark in a World Championship matchnoting that these statistics began to be recorded in 1966.
According to Sofascore, only Paraguay against France in 1998 (72), north korea against Italy in 1966 (73) and Sweden against Argentina in 2002 (80) have had at least 70 disposals in a World Cup match.
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According to the cited portal, a rejection is “a defensive action in which a player under pressure hits the ball to clear the defensive area and/or send it out of bounds“.
Impressive from the Bosnian defense were especially the stopper Nikola Katic and left back Sead Kolasinac.
The former had 26 defensive contributions, including 16 clearances – one from the goal line – and 10/15 aerial duels won, and captain Kolasinac 12 defensive contributions, including 7 clearances, two blocked shots, plus that memorable clearance in front of goal in which he blocked a goal.
