China Daily (Hong Kong)

Croatia’s crew looking to eclipse ‘Fiery Ones’

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ZAGREB — Croatia’s first World Cup semifinal for two decades has revived the memories of the country’s soccer zenith and raised hopes that the Luka Modric-inspired side can go one better than their legendary predecesso­rs.

After a dramatic win on penalties against Russia, Croatia will play England on Wednesday in front of 80,000 fans in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium for a place in the final.

In 1998, Croatia, which had emerged from a bitter independen­ce war only three years earlier, made its debut at a World Cup finals.

With a team featuring Davor Suker, Zvonimir Boban and Robert Prosinecki wearing blues shirts with a distinctiv­e red-and-white checkerboa­rd pattern, the small Balkan nation beat World Cup giant Germany 3-0 in the quarterfin­als in France, sparking delirium at home.

Although Croatia went on to suffer an agonizing 2-1 loss to the French in the semis, it beat the Netherland­s 2-1 in the third-place playoff.

Nicknamed “The Fiery Ones”, that team has stood as an example to their successors ever since.

Now, finally, there is a team ready to join them in Croatian soccer’s pantheon of heroes.

One of that ’98 vintage, Prosinecki, told AFP: “I would so much like that they be better than us.

“1998 will never be forgotten and should not be, but I would love it if eventually the ‘Fiery Ones’ can be moved aside so that we can talk not only about 1998 but also a bit about 2018,” the former Real Madrid player said.

The coach of the 1998 side, Jaroslav Ciro Blazevic, told AFP that for a long time he did not want any other team to match his players’ achievemen­ts.

“Until five or six years ago I was bit vain, and in a way glad that in 1998 we set the bar so high that it was difficult to even contemplat­e, let alone jump over it.

“But now I pray and I would give anything in the world that this squad eventually ‘consigns us to history’. That in future we talk about them,” said Blazevic, now 83, and known in Croatia as the “coach of all coaches”.

The penalty shootout win against host Russia in the quarterfin­als seems to have gone a long way toward achieving that.

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