Posted on 07/14/2018 6:37:38 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
How is it that four million Croats could build a team good enough to make it to the World Cup final, beating Argentina (43 million), England (53 million) and hosts Russia (144 million) along the way?
The country famously didn’t even exist the last time England made it to a World Cup semi-final in 1990.
The country declared independence in 1991, but was embroiled in the war in the Balkans as Yugoslavia split for several years. Most Croats were living in what is now Croatia, but a large minority existed in what are now Serbia and Bosnia especially. What ensued involved ethnic cleansing and bitter enmity between the nations which speak almost identical languages and had been part of same country for most of a century.
Star player Luka Modric, who was born in 1985, himself lived through some horrifying childhood events. He fled his hometown of Modrici at the age of six in the face of conflict. His father then joined the Croatian army – and his grandfather was shot, along with other elderly civilians, by a band of Croatian Serb rebels. His house was burned down.
“These were tough times,” Modric later recalled. “I remember them vividly, but it’s not something you want to think about. The war made me stronger.”
The war affected many of this generation of Croatian players directly. Mario Mandzukic grew up partly in Germany, where he began playing before returning to Croatia at the age of 10, while Ivan Rakitic was born and grew up in Switzerland, where he started his career with Basel. Vedran Corluka was born in Bosnia but fled for Croatia in 1992 amid the war.
The collective memory of a such a recent upheaval may have gone some way to motivate and unify the national team...
(Excerpt) Read more at inews.co.uk ...
It’s a skill, like wiggling your ears, that you develop with a lot of idle time.
There are more children in the US playing soccer than any others sports, combined. Think about it before you claim it not to be an American sport.
Cheers
OK. Them too.
And most likely these days in a boys’ bedroom there will be a poster of Messi or Ronaldo, rather than that of a football or baseball player.
Uruguay has even less people - and two World Cups.
I care nothing about soccer but it is the 4th largest sports
group in the USA behind football, basketball and baseball.
You’ll find it in many youth groups with good participation.
In 1930 and 1950....But they are still a power today. Who knows if Cavani wasn't hurt how far they would have gone.
Quietly, the MLS is growing.
In fact, there is the story of FC Cincinnati, who isn’t even in the MLS that was getting over 30,000 to their games. And now, they are set to join the MLS.
Or Purina dog food. LOL.
Great; they can win a “children’s World Cup”. My town had 3 starters on the 1994 team (when the US hosted); that was going to be the year professional soccer really caught on in this country. 25 years later, and Panama took our place representing CONCACAF; people in my town still thought we’d win the World Cup this year (even if we didn’t qualify).
I love watching World Cup games because they play their hearts out; still too many shootouts to decide games in this year’s tournament. The feigning injury issue, more than the low scores, dooms this sport; Americans will never embrace it without major changes. If it ever becomes popular in the US, it will only be when there are no “Americans” left.
Dubrovnik is amazingly beautiful.
Went to Croatia/Yugoslavia in the mid 80’s. Saw communism at work, biggest kick in the pants I ever got.
Sure - and eight years ago they got 4th place. Size doesn’t matter if you have the right players and coaches - and opponents!
Italy and the Netherlands didn’t qualify, neither.
Teams go through ups and downs. The US is no exception.
And Tito’s Communism was “Communism-Lite” at that. You can only imagine how it must have been in the other Communist countries.
The thing is, soccer is the cheapest game you can play, you can even make a soccer ball for cheap and play it anywherhere.
But here in the US, you have to pay an “arm and a leg” to some Academy to develop the skills. Brazilian kids just get their skills playing on the streets.
Italy and the Netherlands don’t qualify against Haiti and Canada; we are in a group specifically designed for at least the US and Mexico to get to every World Cup - and still fell short.
(That is why CONCACAF teams don’t fare well; they should be qualifying with the South American group, which would still have less teams than the European, African, or Asian groups.)
Kickball is a totally different sport than soccer. It was a lot of fun when I was a kid. It combines soccer,baseball,football and dodgeball. There are leagues around. But it’s never going to catch on. Too bad.
Now THERE you’ve hit on it.
There is no reason for CONCACAF and COMNEBOL not to merge.
They had the Gold Cup Centenio a few years ago to coincide with the Euro tournament, that combined the teams from North and South America, and it was great! You had Euro games in the daytime and Gold Cup at night. They need to make this permanent, and just hold it here in the US.
Good at faking injury?
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