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"Does your father have a shrine for Boban?"
This is not a question you hear every day. But as my cousin explained at a rally of my Croatian-American family in Pittsburgh in 1998, the first year Croatia took over the football world, his father was turned into a devotional museum for Croatian footballer Zvonimir Boban. . It was filled with photographs, sweaters and even candles. Naturally, she wanted to know if my father had done the same thing.
Boban, who is now Deputy Secretary General of FIFA, won the title of Champion of the Champions League in 1994 with AC Milan and, as captain of the team third place at the 1998 World Cup. It was an extraordinary achievement for a tiny nation still in its infancy and received renewed attention as the country's national team prepares for its first World Cup final – Sunday against France
. which motivated my cousin's father to keep a private shrine in Boban's honor. For Boban's most famous hit was not aimed at a football, but a Yugoslav policeman in the middle of a riot at Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb in May 1990. The unrest arose during a match between the Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade. In Yugoslavia, before the breakup of the league and the country
the brawl between two blocks of ultra supporters – Bad Blue Boys of Zagreb and Delije of Belgrade – and many Croats felt that the Yugoslav police did not beat only those who supported Dinamo Zagreb. Boban's flying kick was aimed at protecting a Dinamo supporter who was beaten by the police.
"In Zagreb he has a special place because of this kick, he is still the legend," said Sven Milekic, a Balkan Insight journalist based in Zagreb who wrote about the team. national. "That's why he has this special glow around him." He took the policeman. "
Boban's counter-attack was called" the kick that started the war "and" the day " where the war began. "A little over a year later, Croatia proclaimed its independence. The Bad Blue Boys volunteered and fought their Serbian counterparts on the battlefield rather than at football matches. "It's something that is deeply ingrained in the collective memory," said Dario Brentin, a researcher at the University of Graz in Austria. a dissertation on sport and national identity in post-Yugoslav Croatia. Yet, he said, the role of the 1990 football riot in the founding of modern Croatia has been exaggerated. "It's the mythological version of the events," he said.
The police officer who was deported was neither Serb nor Croat, but a native Bosnian named Refik Ahmetovic. As for Boban, he continued to play for the combined Yugoslav team until Croatia became independent. But a legend is born, and the link between football and Croatian national identity has only accentuated at the very first appearance in the World Cup.
In this 1998 tournament, Boban and the Croatian team made a surprising run up to the semi-finals, falling to the eventual champion, France, by a score of 2- 1. For a country so young, the World Cup race was disproportionately important. Players like Davor Suker, who won Golden Boot for most goals in the tournament, have become national heroes. Suker now heads the Croatian Football Federation
. According to Brentin, politicians like Franjo Tudjman, who was the first president of the country until his death in 1999, focused on athletics to build national identity. "The link between people, team and politics has created a kind of holy trinity and elevated sports and athletes over their occupation," Brentin said. "Through this process, sport has become a pillar of Croatian national identity."
Win or lose on Sunday, the current Croatian team has surpbaded the achievements of the 1998 team by reaching the final of the World Cup. But to rise in the heights of 1998 in the national conscience could force this team to beat France and to become champion.
As the advertisers have repeatedly reminded us during this tournament, some Croatian fans have not embraced the current team and, in particular, its star, Luka Modric, of the same way that they took to Suker and Boban. This is largely because Modric and his teammates pursue a national myth of the 1990s at the peak of a sports myth.
Modric himself was touched very early by the violence in the area. His grandfather, after which he was appointed, was among those who were brutally killed during the Balkan wars. He died when Modric was just 6 years old. And Modric and his family were moved inside his youth, living in a hotel in the city of Zadar.
Undersized player, he managed to climb to the top of the English league before taking the start He will play the main role in the Spanish club Real Madrid, where he won the title of three Champions League titles alongside Cristiano Ronaldo. Modric's midfielder helped Croatia, a nation of just four million people, compete in the final match of what is probably the most fascinating sporting event in the world.
But Modric also faces charges of perjury. scheme involving a powerful football executive. Some fans consider it an example of corruption in the sport. Paying bribes on a market is a bad thing, no question, but that hardly seems like the kind of offense that would prevent fans from rooting for a star athlete. Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, the two biggest football stars in the last decade, have both been trapped in cases of tax evasion with little impact on their public images.
But in Croatia, it seems that version of the players from there two decades ago. So, maybe sporting perfection will be needed by Modric on Sunday to overcome personal failures. "If they win the World Cup, like Messi and Ronaldo, who have not paid taxes, this will be forgotten," Brentin said.
Milekic, a journalist in Zagreb, said that attitudes were already changing. "There is a group of fans angry at Modric," he said, adding that the win in the semifinal against England and the prospect of winning it made us forget "all this". "
," he said about the battle of Croatia at the World Cup final. "It was way beyond expectations."
"Football is sacred, "said Suker in a recent interview," We built the foundations of our house in 1998, and now we are building the second floor. "
My cousin's father would have liked to watch the three victories of the team in the round of 16. 30 grueling minutes of overtime, but he has since died.These players will be celebrated and imitated, but I wonder if they will have sanctuaries. Sunday's result will provide the answer.
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