The thick-set Serb customs officer in his green uniform broke into a broad smile after we were waved through an almost deserted Yugoslav border post yesterday afternoon en route to Belgrade.
The thing that most bothered him, he said, was the postponement of Saturday's soccer match between Yugoslavia and their old enemy, Croatia.
Standing in front of the Vrsac communications mast, one of eight key targets likely to be hit by NATO bombing, the officer cheerfully roared in good English: "We will win."
"Yes, Mijatovic is the best," I replied, referring to Yugoslavia's World Cup hero. He shook his head: "No, I do not talk about the football" and waved us away with the traditional three-fingered Serbian salute.
The border guards were good-humoured. This normally congested frontier post was deserted except for myself, two Romanian TV journalists I was travelling with and two minibuses full of Japanese diplomats heading the other way.
The road to Yugoslavia's capital, Belgrade, was almost empty. The trucks and buses which normally hog the main western highway have either stayed at home or fled to neighbouring countries, leaving the road to a few tractors and cars.
But once in Belgrade things were different. The city had the air of any European city at closing time on Christmas Eve. Petrol stations were jammed with hopeful cars, shops were crowded with shoppers buying pasta, cooking oil, candles, anything that seemed to make sense to someone trying to hoard.
"It's amazing, we've done eight times our normal business," said one tired shopkeeper in the city centre.
The streets were crowded with hooting cars; here and there one raced desperately to get home.
Those already home were watching their televisions, where the state channel played, over and over, advice on what to do if the air raid sirens went off. Watchers were taken through the different siren blasts: an on-off one for biological warfare and a straight 60-second blast for impending air strikes.
In this event, the people were told, take your pre-planned supply of food, torch, toilet kit and official papers and move to the nearest basement or designated shelter.
The West's obsession with surgical strikes makes little impact here. Instead, Serbs fear blanket bombardments will be aimed at Belgrade as happened when the Germans attacked in 1941.
But with the fear came defiance. "My son is in Kosovo and if he dies then it will be for a just cause," said one man at an outdoor market.
Others, weary from years of on-off threats by NATO to bomb over wars in Croatia, Bosnia and now Kosovo, seemed resigned. "It's inevitable we've reached this point, " said one man. "A lot of our innocent soldiers will die."
Others echoed the despair of many citizens, who dislike both the West and their President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic. "I don't know if I'm more angry with the regime or NATO," said one woman.
My Romanian companions, here to film the scene for TV Timisoara, were uncomfortable. Their President, apparently at US bidding, had announced his support for air strikes against Serbia, which Romania, a fellow Orthodox country, regards as a friend. "We are not in NATO. We should stay out," was one comment.
There were few police on the streets; most were too busy elsewhere. Plainclothes officers raided an independent radio station in the morning. Others took away vital parts of a satellite dish serving the European TV teams who have clustered together in Belgrade's two downtown hotels.
This fed rumours that the city will have its communications cut in the event of air strikes and was backed up by the near-impossibility of getting an international phone line. But, as with so many things in the Balkans, there is probably a simple explanation: most likely the phones are jammed by anxious Serbs calling their relatives among Serbia's large foreign Diaspora.