Dundee are Sartid out

Sartid 5
Dundee 2

Well, we seem to have been down this road before. Dundee, oozing with talent and individual flair, undone by a better collective effort. That scenario cropped up often enough in the SPL last season and it happened again as the inconsistent Scots were eliminated from the Intertoto Cup in distinctly frustrating circumstances.

On the return journey home, everyone connected with the club will be reflecting on chances missed and a brace of penalties awarded to FK Sartid. All that matters is they lost heavily, though the scoreline flattered the victors.

The chat around Dundee last week had centred around the notion of Smederevo resembling hell on earth, a ravaged war-torn community at the end of the world, but the reality was rather more prosaic even if the Scottish club soon found themselves dragged into an almighty battle and a contest which could scarcely have been more different from last Saturday's goalless affair in mid-June.

Indeed, on our approach to the stadium, a fraught journey made worse by the heavy rain which swelled the adjacent banks of the Danube, there was little to indicate that here was a city pounded by NATO.

In these circumstances, football offers a merciful release from everyday squalor, a valuable safety valve, and in many ways, Serbia's clubs have similar problems to their Scottish counterparts. The difference being, of course, that financial considerations mean they are exacerbated a million times over. There has been optimistic talk about the establishment of a Balkan League, re-uniting recent war foes and in a sense resurrecting the old Yugoslavian First division, and the PR gloss lent to the project is almost a mirror-image of ideas designed to help elevate Celtic and Rangers - and, hopefully, ambitious teams such as Dundee - beyond their current fringe status in Europe.

Nonetheless, even in a football economy, which at least outwith the Old Firm, is strapped for cash, the Dens Park side have still managed to recruit a variety of impressive, if inconsistent talents, including Fabian Caballero. The Argentine is not even the most expensive of Ivano Bonetti's signings - that accolade belonged to the absent Georgian international, Georgi Nemsadze - but even if Dundee is hardly Bel-Air, it was impossible by comparison to imagine any foreign player opting to see out his pensionable days in Yugoslavia?

As if to illustrate an already stark point, every one of the Sartid starting line-up lived in the town. Only the weather, if you believed the hype, stopped the population turning out en masse to witness their team's first home European tie.

But, in the event, those that stayed away were the unlucky ones as Sartid , unfancied outside their own region, rallied from losing an early goal with lashings of pride and passion, and anyone who imagined that Bonetti's United Nations squad could rely on a fancy-dan approach to their task were soon quickly put right on that score.

At the outset, his men could hardly have calmed their nerves quicker, Caballero putting them ahead after only five minutes. But once again Dundee, just as they did so often in the Premier League, were their own worst enemies, mixing flair and invention with periods of indiscipline and slack marking.

By contrast, Sartid were efficient, 100% committed and the consequence was that Dundee found themselves 3-1 down at the interval and staring an early exit from the competition in the face. Twice in the 18th and 21st minutes, Vladimir Murdinic converted precisely from the penalty spot, and with Srdjan Aleksic notching a third in the 38th minute, the Scots' cause was desperate.

To their credit, they never stopped trying to weave intricate patterns, and when Juan Sara reduced the deficit on the hour, a pulsating finale beckoned. But as the stakes were raised, and the tension grew, Caballero was sent off in the final quarter and an ignominious exit awaited Bonetti as Demir Ramovic and Ivan Krizmanic added late goals.

FK Sartid: Lukic, Mrdak, Socanac, Paunovic, Vaskovic, Radoeavuevic, Zecevic, Panic, Antunovic, Bogdanovic, Mircsavijevic.

Dundee: Langfield, Smith, Marrocco, Rae, Wilkie, Coyne, Artero, Sara, Garrido, Robertson, Caballero.

Referee: Jordan Marinov (Bulgaria)