Mustafa Mijajlović

Mustafa Mijajlović (Cyrillic: Мустафа Мијајловић; born 17 March 1972 as Marjan Mijajlović) is a Bosnian sports commentator.

Career

Mijajlović's career began in Serbian sports television station Sport Klub. In a short time he became popular in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina due to positive comments on the behalf of Bosnian players in the Bundesliga such as "...Be proud Bosnia because you have Vedad Ibišević" and "Congratulations Ibišević, Džeko dragons of Bosnia." After the 2007/2008 Bundesliga season was over, Mijajlović took a job with Bosnian NTV Hayat to commentate Bosnia and Herzegovina national football team matches. He commentated only one game (Belgium - Bosnia), which Bosnia won 4 - 2. This game increased Mijajlović's popularity to where he became a household name. His frantic yelling when Bosnia scored its first goal, and the words "Džeko, Džeko, Džeko, Diamond, Diamond, Diamond, Bosnia is leading" are known to every Bosnian fan who watched the game, and Bosnian team earned a new nickname: "Ćirini Zmajevi" (Ćiro's Dragons). A Bosnian-Serb reporter reported for this game said "the whole of Bosnia won this game, with a Serbian commentator, Croatian coach (referring to Miroslav Blažević) and a mostly Bosniak team." However, several weeks after the legendary game, Mijajlović was fired from Hayat, due to disagreements with the sports redaction of Hayat. Mijajlović said only "Let them do a better job if they are better than me." Immediately after this a Facebook group was opened: "Support Marjan Mijajlović - lets bring back the best commentator back to the tube" (Podrška Marjanu Mijajloviću - Vratimo najboljeg komentatora na male ekrane).

His style of commentating is unique to the area of former Yugoslavia, and it is similar to Brazilian and Turkish commentators. Mijajlović claims that this is because "...when I was little, my brother and I used to watch Galatasaray in the Turkish League, whose commentators inspired me."

Personal life

Mijajlović moved to Belgrade in 1992, but moved back to Sarajevo in 2009.^[1] He converted to Islam and changed his name to Mustafa in 2016.^[2][3]

Return to TV

Marjan Mijajlović today works at Face TV. www.facetv.ba/

References