World Cup 2018: For England’s rivals Croatia, football is political

Melanie McDonagh reports on the history behind tonight’s clash
Melanie McDonagh11 July 2018

Football may be coming home but only after a fight, if the Croats have anything to say about it. The country’s equivalent of the Evening Standard, Vecernji list, observed that “the English are never going to accept us as the equivalent of Brazil or Argentina” but another paper, Jutarnji list, declared, “even small and outnumbered nations can become famous and big if they work together on achieving the goal… You have to fight with blood, sweat and tears and unity — there are no results without them.”

Croatia is, in other words, in the grip of precisely the same football mania as there is here, with the difference that in a country of only four million people, even more hangs on the result. And the country’s famous red and white chequerboard flag is even more in evidence there than St George’s crosses here… on faces, spectacles, you name it. The Croatian president, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, wore an enormous chequerboard top when she celebrated the country’s victory over Russia with a victory dance, right next to the Russian PM, Dmitry Medvedev.

Croats here are pluckily not lying low. Even Slaven Bilic, this paper’s columnist, and ex-West Ham manager, says, “I love England, but 100 per cent I want my country to reach its first final.”

“It’s a great time for us,” says Jakov, a physics PhD student at Imperial College. “We’re getting together and socialising; it’s a chance to be with other people from your homeland. Most of the people I know will be getting together at a pub in Fulham but we hang out in lots of different places.” The Mayor has invited Croats to a screening of the match in Hyde Park, but most will watch from pubs or at home.

Croatia's President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
AFP/Getty Images

The number of Croats officially in London is small — the embassy puts the number at between 7,000 and 10,000 but that’s probably an underestimate. Lots of Croats came here after the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and more young people came here after it joined the European Union in 2013.

Many are graduates and professionals; as a community, they set a lot of store by education. One couple I know came to live in London — they’d worked here previously — during the conflict in former Yugoslavia and went from being local dignitaries to working in McDonald’s. It paid off: two of their children are now academics. They have a formidable work ethic.

There is a long-standing British Croatian Association, the successor to the British Yugoslav Society, which now organises cultural events — Croatia is squarely in the Mittel-Europa tradition of art and music. The Croatian Church in London is another focal point, though younger people are less actively Catholic than the older generations.

Unlike Serbs in London — particularly prevalent in the construction industry — Croats are dispersed in different sectors. “It’s quite a cohesive community,” says Jakov. “if you’re looking to share a flat, you’ll probably do it with someone from home.”

The Adriatic Coast
Alamy Stock Photo

Lots of Londoners visit Croatia (in Dubrovnik , Brits are the biggest group of visitors), especially the Dalmatian coast and the islands, so we’re more familiar than we used to be with Croatian food. It’s good and simple: there is excellent fish and meat and very good wine. One, Traminac, was served at Harry and Meghan’s wedding. Like everyone in the Balkans, Croats eat more bread than you would think possible.

Perhaps the best product is prsut… effectively, Italian prosciutto, but better. Anyone wanting to sample the country’s finest should try Taste Croatia in Borough Market . There’s an Italian influence in Croatian cooking — Venice was one of the colonial powers — but you can discern the former Hapsburg presence too in a taste for pancakes and elaborate cakes.

Younger Croats will tell you that supporting their team in the semi- finals doesn’t involve politics, though it depends on the people you know. In Croatia itself, football is highly politicised, but then that is the case throughout former Yugoslavia.

Serb supporter Novak Djokovic
PA

Novak Djokovic, the Serbian tennis superstar, said generously that he’d be supporting Croatia and declared that “sport is beyond politics. It’s about bringing people together.” Really? It wasn’t long before Serbs expressed their indignation at him having the nerve to back the Croatian side.

The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, gloomily observed today that he can’t bear to listen to all the positive commentary and said that England will have more Serbian supporters than they could have dreamed of.

Mind you, Croatian assistant coach, Ognjen Vukojevic, was sacked yesterday not for nationalistic remarks about his home country but for posting a video on social media in support of Ukraine — a sensitive subject in Russia.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle served Traminac wine at their wedding
AFP/Getty Images

But then it’s impossible to understand football in this region without reference to politics and history. The war in former Yugoslavia practically began with a football match in Zagreb between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade in 1990, where the rioters included followers of the ultra-nationalist Arkan, later a Serb paramilitary in the Bosnian war. In the run-up to the conflict, Croat fans would provoke Serb opponents by chanting: “Kosovo is a republic” …another sore point. (Even now, Kosovo Albanians reflexively support Croatia as an anti-Serb gesture.

Yugoslavia as a state invested heavily in football and basketball: most of the stadiums that successor states now use have their origin in the drive for sporting excellence that characterised Tito’s regime. In fact, England fans can be grateful that Yugoslavia no longer exists: the Croatian team, so many of whom have played for English teams, is good, but imagine their finest plus the best of the Serbs, such as Manchester United’s Nemanja Matic, and Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri from the Swiss team. Now that would be a force to be reckoned with.

"It is a great time for Croats in London. We are getting together and socialising because of the football"

Jakov, a PhD student at Imperial College

Undoubtedly, there are elements of nationalism surrounding the game in Croatia, as well as the corruption that characterises many Balkan institutions. The head of the Croatian equivalent of the FA, Damir Vrbanovic, is involved in a trial for corruption which brought down Zdravko Mamic, the most powerful man in Croatian football. Some nationalist groups have sought to exploit the country’s footballing success. In this context it’s not terribly helpful that Croatia are playing in black shirts.

Certainly the governing HDZ party has made the most of the World Cup for political ends: the opposition take a dim view of the hand-over-heart gesture that some players have adopted because they feel it’s more associated with the party than the nation.

But then football isn’t often pure and it’s never simple. For now, the sentiment among Croats is straightforward. As one young academic and historian, Vicko, formerly from Dalmatia but educated in Harlesden, observes: “Football gives Croatians the possibility to prove themselves to their country and to the world. We are not the biggest, we are not the strongest, but we can be the best.”

Croatian hotspots

Taste Croatia

Stock up on charcuterie, truffles and wine for your own World Cup party at this Borough Market deli run by husband and wife Chris and Ana-Maria.

Peckham Bazaar

This Balkan restaurant in SE15 serves a 2016 Benvenuti Malvazija Istarska white wine, which is recognised as one of the most important indigenous Croatian varieties.

Croatian Embassy

The Croatian Embassy is next to the embassies of Mozambique and Liberia on Fitzroy Square; pubs nearby showing the football include The Prince of Wales Feathers, The Grafton Arms and The Green Man near Great Portland Street.