Here’s to Zagreb on the Barwon

AFTER the Socceroos’ early exit —and in the middle of a competitive AFL season — the World Cup, while colourful, has so far failed to elicit too much excitement locally.

There have been the yawns at work of soccer fans who have stayed awake for the midnight matches or set an alarm for the early morning ones.

And it has been fun to enjoy the Schadenfreude of seeing 2014 victor Germany’s shock crash out at the group stage after losing to Mexico then South Korea.

In a similarly mean way, it has been fun to watch the cockiness of local English fans (who, perhaps out of imperial snobbery, never seem to switch their allegiance to Australia) as their heads got increasingly swollen before Old Blighty got knocked out by Croatia.

And Brazilian player Neymar has become something of a cult sensation after a series of Oscarworthy performances, writhing in pain to draw a penalty often when not even having made contact with another player.

But now as we reach the pointy end of the contest — with Croatia facing off against France in the early hours of Monday morning our time — we have to choose which European football nation we will be rooting for.

There is a lot to like about the culture of France and the contribution to the world of their language, art and cuisine (we have at least a couple of excellent French restaurants in Geelong.)

Even the French people are a lot more likeable than their perhaps unfair reputation as “arrogant frogs” or “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” would suggest.

But as detailed in Weekend Extra today, our Croatian migrants have been a key part of the backbone of this city and of our local soccer community.

And with roughly 4000 Geelong residents of Croatian origin, we’re basically Zagreb on the Barwon River. So early Monday morning we’ll be barracking for the team from the little country on the Adriatic Sea.