Croatia’s achievement in coming 3rd at the 1998 World Cup in France was staggering. A nation barely established took on and beat the world’s powerhouse nations, coming within a whisker of lifting the trophy. But, this is much more than just a story about a talented football team, it is the tale of a nation emerging from the wreckage of the Balkan war and the disintegration of Yugoslavia to stand proudly as an independent country on football’s grandest stage.
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Croatian War of Independence narrated trough the experiences of the players of the National Soccer Team who won the third place during the 1998 FIFA World Cup, in France. Their victory delivered joy to a wartorn population and it is the highest achievement of a postYugoslavian nation in soccer competitions.
Himself
The story of the Yugoslavian football team who became youth world champions in Chile, 1987.
Himself
Story about the last Yugoslavian national soccer cup final, held on May 8, 1991. The match proudly remembered by fans of Croatian side NK Hajduk who defeated Serbian FC Red Star on the eve of subsequent civil war.
Himself
They were called ‘the golden generation’, the young Yugoslavian soccer players who won the Junior World Soccer Championships in 1987 in Chile. They became world-famous and today play in Rome, Milan and Madrid. But the country they represented in Chile no longer exists. Director Vuk Janic talks with soccer heroes like Zvonimir Boban and Sinisa Mihajlovic and visits the neighbourhoods they grew up in. Via the soccer, he tells the story of the disintegration of his country. The supporter riots in 1990 during the match between Red Star Belgrade and Dinamo Zagreb heralded the imminent war. Shortly after, the team fell apart. Seven years later, as national players of Croatia and little Yugoslavia, they compete in two charged qualification matches for the 2000 European Championships. Soccer is not war, but the war is never far away. The first match in Belgrade has to be cancelled due to NATO bombings, and the two national hymns are drowned in deafening whistles from the audience.
