The forthcoming SELAF Bowl is a game that can’t leave anyone indifferent. Can`t, because it’s the greatest rivalry in SELAF, and in American football in Serbia, a game in which nobody can guarantee the winner, regardless of the fact that the Wild Boars have had more success in the past, winning five out of their previous six matches with the Vukovi.
In the SELAF Bowl, I would give the advantage to Kragujevac, especially because of the injury of quarterback Andrej Tasić. The Vukovi’s defense will have to play it’s best if it wants to help it’s team win this game. I am convinced the score will be low, and that kickers Nenad Krsmanović on one, and Milan Matović on the other side will have plenty of work to do.
The rivalry started years ago, and it exists as long as there is American football in Serbia. In 2003, on the 22nd of March the first match of American football was played, precisely between the Wild Boars and a team then known only as Belgrade. The score in this friendly game in Kragujevac was 15-14 for the Wild Boars, and since then the Vukovi have managed just one win, but perhaps in the most important game to date, the Serbian Cup final in 2005.
Many pages have been written in the history of American football in Serbia by these two teams, which have thus far attracted the most fans and spectators to watch the games.
The first game that all the fans anxiously expected, the Wild Boars coming to Belgrade when the Serbian League was being played in 2004, and their win 24-0 that eventually led to a title, was played in the area of Belgrade called New Belgrade, where the Wild Boars have beaten the Vukovi this year also. This area of Belgrade has been very successful then for the Wild Boars, unlike Obilić stadium where they lost 20-7 in the Cup Final, and unfortunately for the Vukovi the final will be played there as well.
Many players that wore the jerseys of one or the other team are no longer with their teams, many new players have replaced them, but a sense of rivalry has remained. The reasons for it can be found in the fact that these two teams have always been in the top of every competition they played in, and have been each other’s only competition, but it’s also true that all the players would play their best even if it was a meaningless game. It’s already a matter of prestige.