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Croatia's semi-final World Cup performances reconciled supporters with their team and removed the spotlight from the corruption that has hit the country's football in recent years. 19659004] For a few weeks, Luka Modric has been working alongside four million people in the Balkans.
As they prepare to face England on Wednesday, coach Zlatko Dalic and the players are celebrated as national heroes and their names. are sung in the streets of Croatia, while they are described as embodying courage, perfection and humility.
But only a month ago, the situation was very different.
"Pray God that they lose everything! read graffiti and banners, dating from the Euro 2016, including in the coastal city of Split and its surroundings.
"Each of your defeats makes us happy, Split wishes you the worst!" Read a banner on a bridge in Split after a defeat against Brazil in a friendly match in June
Critics say that obscure management within the Croatian Football Federation has caused great animosity among supporters and the public.
The country was regularly punished by Fifa and Uefa against unruly supporters known for throwing flares at matches and chanted fascist slogans
recently, Modric defender Liverpool and Dejan Lovren was targeted. Dinamo Zagreb club, businessman Zdravko Mamic, sentenced in June to six and a half years in prison in a multi-million euro corruption case.
Mamic, widely regarded as the true boss of the Croatian federation, is currently in hiding in Bosnia.
Modric and Lovren testified during the Mamic trial, during their transfers from Dinamo Zagreb.
Modric's testimony, visibly confused and unable to remember the year in which he made his debut on the national team, infuriated fans who feared that this would lead to to a reduction of sentence for Mamic
. accused of false testimony, punishable in principle to imprisonment, while Lovren was also the subject of an investigation.
But fans' anger seemed to be forgotten after Modric's brilliant performances at the World Cup
in stadiums, poor-quality refereeing and fan revolt against the federation and its leader Davor Suker have created a negative atmosphere around the team.
Although success in Russia has raised the dark atmosphere, the problems with Croatian football remain.
"The worst thing is that all the trust society has in football has been lost," said former international Dario Simic at AFP in April
. The winner of the Boot is hated by fans because he was named to head the federation in 2012 because of Mamic's lobbying and is accused of being his puppet.
Suker was re-elected for a four-year term as a federation (HNS) head last year. A senior HNS official, Damir Vrbanovic, tried with Mamic and sentenced to three years in prison, has kept his post.
"The success of the team at the World Cup and all other problems are not related," told AFP sports journalist Robert Matteoni
"What's going on now "This is the consequence of pure football.A coach who can get the most out of them and that is where this result comes from."
After a spectacular victory over penalties against Russia, Croatia will face England on Wednesday in front of 80,000 people at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow for a place in the World Cup final
They repeated the success of the 1998 team that reached the semi-finals of Croatia's first World Cup as an independent nation.
Some local media say that once the tournament is over, it could trigger "Maybe football really comes home, where it belongs, to Croatia," commented the influential newspaper of Jutarnji List, playing on the songs in England of "It's Coming Home" – the resuscitated theme song of the European Champio 1996
"Croatian football has a chance to turn this horrible page … and of start a new story, "said the newspaper.
But he warned that "after the shower in the champagne of victory, not only profound changes must be made."
