St. Louis Flares Up Over Bosnia Soccer Celebrations at Busch Stadium

As Yugoslavia dissolved into war in the '90s, Bosnians emigrated en masse to St. Louis, eventually building a community of more than 70,000 that would give River City the largest Bosnian population per capita outside of Bosnia.

Now, for the first time since becoming an independent nation, the Bosnian national soccer team has qualified for the FIFA World Cup, an international championship tournament that makes the World Series look like Opening Day. The achievement is particularly meaningful for St. Louis Bosnians because Roosevelt High School and Saint Louis University alum Vedad Ibisevic scored the qualifying goal.

See also: Busch Stadium Soccer: Injury Pulls Messi from Roster, But Ibisevic Is the Real Draw

"This was the first positive thing that has happened to us since the war," Grbic says. "We live and breathe soccer. This is solidifying us as more than just a war-torn country. We're doing something that's pulling the community together."

Grbic and her family run the south city restaurant of the same name, specializing in Eastern European and Bosnian food.

To host this history-making team in her family's adopted home was "one of our proudest moments," Grbic says.

But all St. Louisans could see was the fire.

See the St. Louis Twitterverse go crazy over flares after the jump.