History Of The World, Part I

Well it’s not the history of the world, but it’s a nice little story. It all began 12 years ago in England, EURO 96′, which was Croatia’s first major tournament since declaring it’s independence in 1991. After topping our qualifying group (ahead of Italy), we were drawn in Group C, along with the 92′ winners Denmark, Portugal and fellow newcomers Turkey.

The first test would be indeed against the enigma that was Turkey in those days, a nation whose footballing tradition resembles that of Croatia in some ways. I remember it wasn’t much of an affair until the 86th minute, when in a swift counter Asanovic put a through ball to Goran Vlaovic, who after sprinting roughly half a pitch had just enough in him to slot the ball home and bring Croatia a vital 1:0 lead.

What’s interesting about this goal though is that while Vlaovic was making his run, a Turkish player had a clear chance to obstruct &foul him, but instead the Turk raised his hands and let the play continue. Alpay was later awarded with a fair play award and a genuine soft spot in the hearts of all Croats, as opposed to the criticism he’d endured from his own fans and press alike. God bless him.

Moving on to our brightest EURO moment, Croatia went on to beat Denmark, the defending champions at that, with a convincing 3:0 thrashing. Actually I won’t talk much on this one, i’ll let the Suker video do all the gloating. Notice the cheeky 50m lob attempt as well. Boban also got himself on the scoresheet of what was indeed a fine Hillsborough afternoon. It was our first big competition, and we just qualified for the quarterfinals and brushed aside the reigning European champions in the process of doing it. Sky was the limit.

With 6 points from two opening matches and seemingly nothing to lose (or gain), coach Miroslav “Ciro” Blazevic opted for a mixed first eleven, resulting in a “Danish” whooping, Portuguese coming on top of us with a 3:0 win, courtesy of Figo, Pinto and Domingos. That meant we had occupied the second spot in the group’s final standing and booked a trip to The Old Trafford where we would face Group “D” winners Germany. By losing the top spot to Portugal, we “missed out” on a clash with that group’s runners up and eventual tournament revelation, Czech Republic.

The quarterfinal was a bitter affair, almost resulting in what would surely be the shortest war affair in the history of the modern world. Seriously though, a lot of controversy was involved in the match. To sum it all up, there was the Klinsmann incident (should’ve been red carded), the Stimac incident (was red carded), and the Sammer incident (obvious foul leading up to the winning goal for 1:2). In short, 3 very debatable decisions and they all went the other way. Of course, it was always gonna be a matter of interpretation, but that match had certainly left a sour taste in both mouths and minds of the losing side. We were dismayed but determined to bounce back.

And eventually we did set the record straight, but that’s another story. This one ends on The Old Trafford, and it caps what i thought was a pretty decent introduction of Croats to the footballing world. Anyway, I’ll write up more about our glory attempts in the weeks leading up to Euro, along with some player/position reviews and such. Through this I hope you’ll get a glimpse of our still young but already memorable footballing history.