This WC..Full of Croatians.

Paulo Rink isn’t playing for a while but Kevin Kuranyi is brazilian too. But he is at least son of germans

You are a deluded loser - we have three Australians playing for Croatia.

Posted from  United States

Are these Australians Aborigines or do they have a connection to Croatia in some way, Joe?

Posted from  United States

I think what Joe meant is that unlike the “Croatians” playing for Australia, the “Australians” playing for Croatia weren’t born in the country they will be playing for. Moreover, at least one of these “Australians” playing for Croatia actually learned to play in Australia as well.

Posted from  Australia

what about Serbia and Montenegro….Weve got our team plus…Tony Popovic (Half Serb/Croat) Dado Prso, Milan Rapaic and Bosko Balaban

Posted from  Australia

How do the players refer to themselves. Croatian-Australians or simply Australians?

Posted from  United States

No need to raise your blood pressure Joe. I did not insult Australians in any way. I am just pointing out that 6 players on your team are actually of Croatian descent, all of whom, except Viduka(and you can keep him after todays performance) wanted to play for Croatia first.

Crno> Does this mean you will be cheering for Cro this summer?

The Croatian players that play in Australia are referred to as ‘not fit to play for Croatia’

Excuse me but u guys forgot to mention Marco Bresciano who is half Croatian and half Italian. So that’s a total of 7 players with Croatian heritgage in the Aussie side. Wow! Austrialia must be thankful for all the Croatians who decided to emmigrate to its shores.

There is also Daniel Bilos, if he gets the call up for Argentina.

There is also Boris Smiljanic of Switzerland. And there are probably many more that we don’t know about

This goes to show what awesome talent Croatian players are. Especially when you consider the proportion of them in the W.C. and Croatians globally as a whole compared to other nationalities.

Posted from  United States

Crno Gorac, do you mean Australia’s Tony Popovic?

I have known his family for years.
Both parents are from CROATIA. Unless your talking about someone else I would like to known where you got that from?

Posted from  Australia

Excuse me but u guys forgot to mention Marco Bresciano who is half Croatian and half Italian. So that’s a total of 7 players with Croatian heritgage in the Aussie side. Wow! Austrialia must be thankful for all the Croatians who decided to emmigrate to its shores.

There is also Daniel Bilos, if he gets the call up for Argentina.

There is also Boris Smiljanic of Switzerland, he should get called. And there are probably many more that we don’t know about

This goes to show what awesome talent Croatian players are. Especially when you consider the proportion of them in the W.C. and Croatians globally as a whole compared to other nationalities.

Posted from  United States

Crno gorac, as for Prso being a Serb, this is a massive misconception. He is a true Croat who’s religion happens to be of the orthodox faith. I dare you to call him a Serb to his face. This a Slovenian journo once did about two years ago and the journo was almost knocked out. (exaggerating a bit, but to get my drift, Prso was not happy)

Next time Croatia plays watch Prso during the National Anthem, He will be one of the first players with his hand over the hart and does not miss a line of the national song.

Posted from  Australia

Check the number of coaches associated with the world cup from Croatia. Then look up that there have been numerous Croatian referees in the WC and then there are officials with various national team representations, such as Rudolf Kralj technical secretary of the Argentine team that won the cup in ‘78 and other officials with FIFA itself. We’ve deifinitely got a history at the WC along with the current associations. Its a shame that these 100% born in Australia Australians playing for Croatia didn’t see fit to play for Australia. I’m almost crying in my beer right now. They must have found something distasteful in that idea because they went half way round the world to play for a little bitty place like Croatia. I really don’t think it matters where someone learned to play their soccer. I’m sure these boys kicked a ball around with a few Croatians first anyway, probably their fathers to begin with. I guess we can blame their parents for instilling in them a sense of Croatian national identity and pride, otherwise they might be playing in Angola or Saudi Arabia. The Australian national team must think a Croatian or two got game. So much for delusions.

Posted from  United States

Hey guys,

Thanks again for visiting the site and for your passion. I have deleted a few comments that really weren’t appropriate for a nice football blog discussion. There is so much we could be talking about with this Croatian team so let’s stick to football and leave the politics and other subjects for another forum.

I greatly appreciate you cooperation and would be happy to discuss this with you if you have any questions.

Cheers,
Bob
bob [at] worldcupblog.org

Posted from  United States

The seven players playing for Australia with Croatian Heritage all learned to play football in Australia, yes. But, most of the players played for Croatian clubs in Australia, and were trained by coaches with Croatian heritage. So lets not give the Australians ALL the credit for producing these guys. There are not many Australians who played for Sydney & Melbourne Croatia, that is why not many of them made it to the national team.
And who said that HNS didnt want any of the seven players currently playing in the Australian side? Don’t any of you remember ex-preident Franjo Tudjman? He was a great admirer of Mark Viduka, if Viduka had chosen to play for Croatia all those years ago he would still be first choice stiker for Croatia today!

Posted from  Australia

come all of you, you all must know that brother in arms Diego Maradona is born to a great baba from Korcula, Croatia.

solo world cup winner plus his team

Posted from  New Zealand

Marco Bresciano’s mother is Croatian as well I believe.

Posted from  Australia

i canot belive dado prso is a serb but i know he calls him self a croat but his religion is aothodox i cant belive it if some one can explain to me please do and reply from this comment.

Posted from  Australia

“i canot belive dado prso is a serb but i know he calls him self a croat but his religion is aothodox i cant belive it if some one can explain to me please do and reply from this comment.”

Thats the reason he doesnt let people know hes a Serb. Because supporters of the national team who should love him for his footballing ability will find a resentment towards him. Theres no such thing as a Croat Orthodox……..

Milan Rapaic (Although not in the squad) and Bosko Balaban are also of Serbian stock

Posted from  Australia

There are a few less Croats in the World Cup now!

Posted from  Australia

crnogorac,….

Prso’s father is serb, and mother is catholic croat.
Prso declares himself a croat of the orthodox faith.

rapaic and balaban are both self declared croats, who are partly of serb ancestry

Posted from  Australia