The Rise of the Croatian National Football Team

Hey! What's up everyone, how we doin? It's been a little while but we're back with another video essay about a team. These are really fun and also really time consuming but I enjoyed making this one. The second part sucked so I'm gonna go rewrite it and record it again and post it sometime soon! Thank you for watching, appreciate you all. This video covers Croatias development as a national team, all the way since the yugoslavia days to 2018's 2nd place medal.

[@IvoTurk]

Miroslav Ćiro Blažević, the coach who led Croatia in 1998 at the World Championship in France, when Croatia won the bronze medal, died today. Rest in peace. Slava mu i hvala!

[@ArminFalcon]

I saw, he led Bosnia and built a squad that would go to the 2014 World cup too. May he rest in peace! 🙏

[@mrkvazekoslav5315]

Just one correction, in 2016 euro Croatia topped the group beating Spain, but lost 1-0 to Portugal in round of 16

[@tonyjeliccflstudiehandledn7348]

Drop that ex regime. Croatian football was by far better already in the 20s and the 30s than their neighboring countries. Check the facts. It never started during the 90s but much earlier.

[@bijou201]

You forgot to mention almighty Alen Boksic. That guy was crucial for Croatia - thanks to his goals Croatia qualified for two WCs '98 and '02. Sad thing is that he had bad luck with national squad but had a amazing club career. Basically, every time Croatia needed him, he was injured. Euro '96 in the opening game he got a head injury. Weeks prior to WC '98 he had knee injury. He was missed so badly at that WC. Late legendary coach Miroslav Blazevic always said that if Croaia had Boksic in '98 they would be a champions.

[@ArminFalcon]

I didn't find anything about him although I did hear the name! If I ever end up remaking this video, which I might, I'll be doing a lot more research on individual players. Thanks for the heads up, it's always useful!

[@bijou201]

@@ArminFalcon hmm.... Croatia played with Suker-Boksic attacking combo for yrs. He had huge career in France, Italy and later less huge in England due to his injuries but he was one of the Croatian best footbalers of all time. Great, fast, a machine with amazing stamina. (Watch his goal vs Sampdoria). In recent Croatian official pole he was voted in the top 10 greatest ever of all time. Boksic was part of Croatian first golden generation, key player and sadly an injury prone. He could only support his team in '98 by sitting there with VIP audience at stadium. You will hear any Croatian saying "if we have had Boksic in 98 - we would be champs". I remember how entire nation was devastated when heard about his injury right before WC 98. He is our legend and tbh deserves to be mentioned. Its too much highlight on 3-4 same old names (like Suker, Boban, Prosinecki)... Croatia had major talent and help in Boksic, Jarni, Asanovic etc...without em - no way Croatia would be a WC sensation.

[@9and7]

You must do Boksic. He realy is one of the great 'what ifs' of world football.@@ArminFalcon

[@9and7]

And Ivic.

[@belli4933]

This video is to vague. The Yugoslavian league had a special rule that players couldnt leave until they were 28. Partizan, Hajduk, Crvena Zvezda and Dinamo Zagreb were a fierce rivalry and all of those clubs produced the main players of Yugoslavia and later for Croatia and Serbia. Tito focused a lot on sports basketball, handball and waterpolo were also huge. That is a reason why Croatia has 13 medals in handball, are the current holders of the European Championship in waterpolo. In my hometown of Split we have almost over a 100 medal holders from different disciplines placked on the Zapadna Riva. We arent a fluke. In tennis finals of the Olympic games in 2021 it was 2 Croats vs 2 Croats

[@ArminFalcon]

Never said it was a fluke, It's mainly hard work and dedication with some focus as well.

[@korgothofbarbaria2841]

That is absolutele horse shit. Croatian player and sport prosper when they started to go and play out in other leagues.

[@adrianosverko6601]

Discussing Yugoslavia is a copy of other videos. It is not about the political landscape, it is just a love for the game that integrates and dovetails with the cultures. Listen, here is my story. I was a Croatian American captain of my high school soccer team and was all-county. I played basketball too. If I played either sport, in Yugoslavia (when we visited), my parents preferred that I play in the small towns we visited, where I would have been playing with Croats, Italians, Slovenians and tourists. In the case of basketball or soccer, they were nervous for me to play in Rijeka, downtown, where there was a higher chance of running into a thug or drug addict. That included a bullying experience with a teen who was Serb from a politically connected/corrupt family. We had stuff happen to us due to commy Yugoslavia, and while that's another story, it made my mom and dad concerned and paranoid. I am talking about the 1980s. So, while the map with all the flags is cool, it is not the only narrative in town. Another narrative is that kicking the soccer ball around in the old town or a park is what we do as a family. My brother in law, who is Neapolitan (Italian ethos) and me, an Istrian (Croatian ethos) during family holidays in NY would set up soccer games with 8 family members plus neighbors. We hop fences in high schools to play tennis on a cold Sunday. We built a basketball court in the backyard. Real long island stuff. Results? We don't watch sports, we live them. Without going through the list of sports abilities of our kids, one is now a physical education teacher and tennis coach. Another is entering child psychology. None of this had to do with the politics of Yugoslavia. It has everything to do with family values and the "how to spend time with your children and your family." This touches, BTW, another important element, teamwork!

[@ArminFalcon]

This was actually a good read! The point I was trying to get across was that in Yugoslavia, football played a huge part more then most nations. And when it collapsed that managed to stick with practically all of them. Maybe it just didn't come across well enough, but none the less, thanks for the input, it's well appreciated.

[@adrianosverko6601]

@@ArminFalcon I agree. I assumed that the majority of the video would be politics. I wrote my comment and then went in to see the entire video. Actually, this was a great job, thank you! And thank you for reading my thoughts. Make more videos like this, they are interesting. For example, I would love to know more about the Moroccan team. So much fun to watch!

[@ArminFalcon]

@@adrianosverko6601 Thank you! I appreciate that. I'm always looking for new ideas so that has not gone unnoticed!

[@lujanovic1946]

Croatia 2026🇭🇷❤️🥇

[@PatrikCROTV]

There is abaout 10 milions Croats in World, so it is a real pool from which players are drawn.

[@markmusic5303]

lol we had Rakitić and who else that was far important? I mean most of them are our homegrown boys that started careers in Croatian league

[@perocigla4425]

Griezmann dived, faked a foul. That penalty is doubtful and we had the injured goalkeeper in game...

[@ArminFalcon]

France didn't outclass Croatia at all, they just had a little more luck on their side. Croatia, imo, played their best football in the final and just got unlucky

[@perocigla4425]

@@ArminFalcon Yeah. They had luck and the refferee.

[@ytubeu7450]

💪🇭🇷💪🇭🇷💪

[@TVRobby]

You are just talking about the results and matches on the world cups, if the name of the video is "The Rise of the Croatian National Football Team" you could have covered some back stories about Hajduk and Dinamo fantastic academies for example, or important transfers from Dinamo Zagreb that made them the players they are, who and what are the people and projects behind the rise of so many good players in a small country

[@markmusic5303]

that's what's up

[@Xof_D-Dawg_Fox]

I Sub!

[@aarshwankhede8321]

I liked your video, subbed. Keep up with the good content. Just a bit editing is required.

[@ArminFalcon]

Appreciate that! 🙏

[@Ace_Gaming]

croatia seem to be in a pickle right now in the euros, they lost against turkey and wales and now are 3rd with sharing same points with wales (10) while turkey already qualified with 16 points, if wales win their next 2 games we go through the knockout phase of qualifying the only thing that can save us is wales drawing or losing against turkey or armenia, and us winning against latvia and armenia. pray for the best 🙏

[@ArminFalcon]

You'll be fine, I'm sure ❤️

[@CroaticusMagicus]

joj duuude, no individual stories, struggles of the OG's for first caps? It's where we got the x-factor which culminated in '98....sad face :(

[@ArminFalcon]

The video would be 3 hours long lol. I had a lot to cover and didn't find out about that, thanks for the heads up.

[@CroaticusMagicus]

@@ArminFalcon Yeah, true. Lots to research, but it is a top story...it's why we call our jerseys sacred (a.k.a. playing for national team)

[@Arminchaipom]

My name is also Armin

[@andrefilipovic7850]

🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷

[@danijelsan81]

To all the folks dumping on our friend Armin; guys, chill. He’s clearly a young man and is learning. He’s also shown class by responding respectfully to many rude and curt comments. What I love about this is that young people are researching and learning about our nation’s history. It’s a history that I lived through, a history that was unkind to many and even drove many of us abroad eventually. Regardless, I love to hear others learn and speak about my country, even if I don’t find everything agreeable or factually correct.

[@ArminFalcon]

Thank you for the comment! Yeah, I got a couple things wrong with the group tables and I definitely should've brought up more stuff but for a lot of these campaigns I wasn't even around for so I just went off of the internet and wikipedia and such. People have generally been really supportive of the video, comments correcting me are more than welcome. Once more, thank you for the support and I'm looking forward to seeing how the Vatreni perform in Germany next year!

[@antesokol8222]

Dude half of this facts are not true so pls when you want to make a story about football phenomenon called Croatia find some better source

[@ArminFalcon]

I'd appreciate if you could let me know what I got wrong so it doesn't happen again? I am only aware of one mistake regarding the 2016 Euro's and that's all.

[@krog7351]

de video za faruka hadzibegica

[@jokisha999]

Konfuzno

[@ocendo1]

Boring history lesson.Wrong tales too.Croats are more than 7 million in the world.Our history does not start with Yugoslavia.Forget BS

[@ArminFalcon]

Croatia, as a country, only have about 4 million people in the country. I don't know how many there are in the world so I didn't want to mention it. Also, Croatia's history doesn't start with Yugoslavia, obviously, never said it did. Just said that the football was in it's route from Yugoslavia.

[@mashinajoe]

10+ million Croatians around the world

[@argo9495]

@@mashinajoeje 50

[@luishernandezblonde]

I have to warn about admiring Croatia too much here. Previously, Croatia was the most prosperous part of former Yugoslavia and this was due to Josip Tito's policies of concentrating the best infrastructures in Croatia and Serbia (mainly the former). So Croatia benefited a lot when Yugoslavia collapsed. But Croatia has huge problems. My comment maybe harsh but the reality is here: First, outside Josko Gvardiol, Croatia has proven incapable to produce a new fresh bath of new players. You may wonder why Croatia, despite lacking youth replacements, still finished 3rd in Qatar, but this led to the second reason: they are deeply reliant on old guards (Perisic, Modric, Lovren), and these players cannot carry Croatia forever. The only times they won on 90 minutes were against Canada (a weak World Cup team, only making second appearance and football not Canada's biggest sport) and Morocco (in third place, mainly for honour) - and did their youngsters really come up with anything outside these games? Nothing. The biggest problem, however, is the Croats understand nothing from it. They thought that they were blessed by God for their sporting skills. But Croatia has been in decline for years now and Luka Modric is the reason that prevent it from happening. Their youth footballers have largely failed to live up when they grow older. Take the lesson of Ivo Grbic, who himself has been unable to establish foothold in Atletico Madrid. I am not a confident person, but honestly Croatia will fail disastrously in 2026 North America. This is a sad fact but I think Croatian football won't grow anymore, they shall stagnate like what happened to Hungary. Sad, but true.

[@ArminFalcon]

I hear you completely, but people said this before the most recent World Cup and Croatia still did very well

[@luishernandezblonde]

@@ArminFalcon This is just the "recent". What about the next 10 or 20 years? Hungary, twice World Cup runners-up, declined from prominence because of their overconfidence from their footballing system without reforms (and also due to corrupt communist authorities). Only recently Hungary began to recover but they are still just the shadows of their former selves. Croatia's problem is exactly what Hungary had gone through. Although I think historical circumstances allowed Croatia to alter from Hungary, but since independence, Croatia has relied exclusively from the same system rather than improving it. This is why after 1998 World Cup, Croatia entered a footballing crisis that lasted until 2018 (during that time, Croatia still qualified for various tournaments but largely underperformed). Hungary had paid a heavy price for it. Poland also suffered. Serbia suffered. Russia suffered (and is currently banned). Ukraine suffered. Bulgaria suffered. Romania suffered. And Croatia is the upcoming victim. Just, when and how.

[@ArminFalcon]

Oh of course! Every small country eventually starts to blunder, but I don't think you can deny how impressive it is that in current day, Croatia have been this successful in World Cups.

[@luishernandezblonde]

@@ArminFalcon I don't deny Croatia's achievements. But I am sceptical of Croatia to maintain their ability. Croatia has punched above expectation, but given history, I am no doubt aware about the upcoming, if not saying, worsening Croatian football crisis. I am Eastern European and my whole experience gives me knowledge about football in this part of the world. Unfortunately, Eastern Europe (which Croatia is part of) has a long history of being plagued by poor performances in football since 1990s. Croatia, carrying the mask "best performed team" from former Iron Curtain, also had an era of mediocre forms. I have witnessed Croatia's footballing system by myself. It's unchanged since 1990s and this partly explains why Croatian youth footballers are so bad nowadays. But Croatia was blessed by the fact they are gifted with old talents like Luka Modric, Mario Mandzukic, Dejan Lovren and Ivan Perisic, people that I believe, helped Croatia to punch above the weight several times. But the old guards are ageing and they can't carry forever. Luka Modric, since returning to Real Madrid, has become less frequently featured in the team - an example of how age is slowly biting. And I don't see any major Croatian talents, except Gvardiol, shine currently. That's why I don't agree with the "rise" of Croatian football team. I am wary that Croatia is actually heading to its upcoming collapse.

[@ArminFalcon]

@@luishernandezblonde Croatia have produced great talents recently, from Borna Sosa,Gvardiol,Majer,Sucic,Stanisic,Sutalo..Of course it's unlikely that their success will continue but I doubt they'll collapse, I think they'll just do average in upcoming tournies.