There are a few things that I didn’t quite get to in my piece on D.C. United midfielder Branko Boskovic, and things certainly took an interesting turn last week when United landed his former Rapid Vienna teammate, Hamdi Salahi, too. That was something I didn’t know about and didn’t ask Boskovic when we recently sat down to talk prior to the Florida training camp. Boskovic was complimentary of Salihi during United’s open locker room session on Friday.
“I just must say it was an amazing three years [for Salihi] in Austria, in two different clubs,” Boskovic said. “We will see, the numbers were great. He’s a great guy and in the best stage at age 28. I think he can help us, but we will see. This is a different league, different country. I know, there I was good. When I come here, I was like [shakes head, rolls eyes]…”
Which is partly why I wanted to write the story.
One detail that didn’t quite make it was what Boskovic had to say about D.C. United trainers Brian Goodstein and Pete Calabrese.
“This last one month has helped me so much,” Boskovic said. “Goody and Pete, they help me so much, and I see now that my [fitness] test was better than last year, and I must thank them because they really help me, they work with me, they stay here with me, and I really appreciate that.”
I also didn’t get to the disappointment that Boskovic felt by losing out on the chance to help the Montenegro national team as it tried to qualify for Euro 2012 while he sat out the year injured. Boskovic joined the team for the 3-0 aggregate loss in a two-game playoff against the Czech Republic, but not as a player.
“For me, it was more difficult to watch that game than a player in the game,” he said. “It was very exciting. I was expecting to go in the Euro Cup. We miss a big chance. Who know when we’re going to have a next chance to play this game. It was good. We were disappointed, but life goes on.”
Speaking of life, Boskovic’s decision to stay in Washington during the offseason was a practical one as well as a smart one. He said that his wife, Daniela, has a group of friends here in town, and his six-year-old son, Uros, is doing well in first grade.
Boskovic was worried about how Uros would do in an American school, but after 18 months here, Boskovic says he starts sentences in Serbian and finishes them in English.
“When I come here,” Boskovic said, “I say to one of my friends, ‘I’m a little bit worried about him because he don’t understand language and everything.’ He say, ‘Worry more about he don’t forget your language because he going to start to speak English and forget your language.’ Now it’s like that.”
Next up will be getting Boskovic to fit in better with his teammates, like Salihi and Dwayne De Rosario, the latter who doesn’t worry about if there are enough soccer balls go around.
“He’s a guy that offers a lot,” De Rosario said. “He’s very calm on the ball. He has great vision. He has clean feet. He reads the game very well, and those attributes are something that we were lacking at times, a guy who could just control the ball and control the game.”
Said D.C. forward Josh Wolff: “I think he has huge upside. Now it’s a matter of him getting the games and the minutes back on the field. Technically, tactically, a super player, just has to find his niche and where he fits in, and he was playing fantastic before he got injured. If we can get him back to that level, he can be a huge contributor.”
