World Cup 2018: Croatia have had amazing success over the past 20 years, but no one can explain how they’ve done it
The nation of just four million people has overachieved again at this World Cup, and everyone is asking how they do it ahead of semi-final with England
CROATIA are back in the World Cup semi-finals tomorrow night and fans, journalists and analysts around the world are all asking the same question: “How do we do it?”
To be honest, Croatians themselves would struggle to tell you how a country of just over four million people could enjoy such consistent success.
Not even former head of the Croatian FA youth development programme Romeo Jozak could explain how we’ve qualified for five out of the six World Cups we’ve entered since becoming independent - and reached the semis in 1998.
He simply called it “undefinable”, adding: “If we could find a way to bottle it and sell it, it would no doubt be the most sought-after product in the world.”
Our latest success comes just over thirty years since Croatia’s first golden generation was coming through the academy system of the old Yugoslavia.
They won the World Under-20 Championship in Chile in 1987 - seven years before we would play our first competitive match as an independent country.
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After beating the likes of Chile, Brazil and West Germany, many believe that Yugoslavia side was the best youth team ever to play the game.
But the devastating Balkan war which started only four years later in 1991 ensured it would always remain a huge “what if?” in terms of how great they may have become.
However, as one team vanished into the ashes of war, the individuals still made their way on to the biggest stage.
The stars of the Chile generation - Robert Jarni, Zvonimir Boban, Davor Suker, Igor Stimac and Robert Prosinecki – would go on to unprecedented success wearing our red and white chequered shirt eleven years on, leading Croatia to a third-placed finish at the 1998 World Cup in France.
With that triumph coming just three years after the end of the bloody war of independence, many Croatians will tell you that it is pure, unadulterated pride that makes our sports teams who they are.
There is certainly no academy system in place in Croatia that any leading football nation would ever wish to follow.
In much of the country, football infrastructure is appalling and a clear youth development strategy non-existent.
The top Croatian coaches are, almost without exception, those who played at the highest level or those most connected to the FA.
The only exception to that rule is perhaps the Dinamo Zagreb academy.
Croatia’s richest club by a distance, they produced the likes of Luka Modric, Dejan Lovren, Sime Vrsaljko, Mario Mandzukic and Mateo Kovacic.
But their story also has a dark background which includes oligarchy, embezzlement and finally, to the relief of even Dinamo’s own fans, jail sentences.
Yet Croatians’ genetic make-up and passion for sport from a young age, inspired by the 1998 generation, provide the ideal platform to succeed.
While Gordon Strachan suggested last year that Scots may be too short to succeed in modern football, people in Croatia are among the tallest in the world and it’s no coincidence that basketball and water polo are also among the most popular sports in the country.
But all these explanations are insufficient. And the fact that even Jozak, the man who spent four years from 2013 to 2017 with the Croatian FA bringing through the talent which would form one of the world’s best man-for-man squads, is unable to define a root cause is telling.
Whether it’s genetics, pride, defiance or some sort of divine intervention, the fact remains that Croatia is a sporting success miracle, and one which will be on display for the whole world to see against England in Moscow tomorrow night.