Another late show from Turkey served to send Croatia crashing out of the 2008 European Championship on penalties. Ivica Klasnić’s last gasp goal looked set to have won it, only for the…
Tag: croatia
There are still enough people who don’t quite get the hype around Ivan Rakitić – but they should. We should all enjoy his sumptuous skills while we can
Long before joining Arsenal, Eduardo had overcome a number of challenges, but he rose above them all. Sadly, a horrific leg break would change everything
A unique character, Ivan Perišić has suffered more than his fair share of highs and lows since he moved to France at an early age to save the family farm
At his best, Alen Bokšić had it all: pace, power, skill and creativity. And yet his career should’ve scaled greater highs. It would in today’s game
From humble beginnings and a career of doubters, Mario Mandžukić has risen to become one of the most underrated big-game players in football
In 1991, the great Red Star Belgrade of Savićević, Prosinečki and Pančev won the European Cup, defeating a Marseille team featuring stars such as Jean-Pierre Papin, Abedi Pele and Chris Waddle. In terms of…
When Croatia, even if somewhat surprisingly, qualified for the final of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Lana took to social media to express her happiness. She posted a picture of her family…
In February 2002, over 12,000 fans packed themselves into Fratton Park to see former Real Madrid and Barcelona maestro Robert Prosinečki score a scintillating hat-trick against Barnsley. What should have been an easy three…
“Thank you Croatia! Thank you Zagreb!” hailed Croatian captain Luka Modrić to the joyous crowd in Zagreb’s Jelačićsquare. “We have achieved our dream.” More than half a million had turned out to…
The Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke described childhood as man’s true homeland. The place where one wants to return, where one never left. For many Croatians, the summer of 1998 arouses such…
Croatia wrestled their independence from the iron grip of Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991. Just short of a month before, on 29 May, one of the early Croatian stars in the era…
At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, David Beckham was captain of England. The squad he led – though painfully restricted by manager Sven-Göran Eriksson’s abhorrence of creativity and his subsequent insistence…
One of the most annoying by-products of the blanket coverage that football has enjoyed over the last decade is that it’s impossible to express appreciation for a relatively up-and-coming team without being accused…
In 2013,Readers Digest confirmed what everybody already knew. In 16 cities across the globe, they arranged for a stooge to drop their wallet in a crowded space, somewhere it was bound to be…
SOME TEAMS HAVE LEFT THEIR MARKS ON TOURNAMENTS, only to watch on as another team won. Hungary in 1954 and the Netherlands in 1974 had risen to the World Cup final but…
Pinned to the floor with the nearby bed serving as their canopy of preservation, a family besieged by war would sometimes sit for hours. Miles away, mortars would be shot in their…
Illustration by Federico Manasse Peter Schmeichel frantically back-peddled as Aljoša Asanović sent a wonderfully precise diagonal pass from his own half, a pass which Davor Šuker, situated on the far left, took…