Croatia: Defining a Nation

An emotional depiction of how one whole nation felt during difficult events and how football and players gave their contribution to that struggle and unification.

The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the Government of Croatia which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and local Serb forces.

In Croatia, the war is primarily referred to as the "Homeland War". A majority of Croats wanted Croatia to leave Yugoslavia and become a sovereign country, while many ethnic Serbs living in Croatia, supported by Serbia, opposed the secession and wanted Serb-claimed lands to be in a common state with Serbia.

Most Serbs sought a new Serb state within a Yugoslav federation, including areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and attempted to conquer as much of Croatia as possible.

Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991, and cut all remaining ties with Yugoslavia on 8 October 1991.

The JNA initially tried to keep Croatia within Yugoslavia by occupying all of Croatia. After this failed, Serb forces established the self-proclaimed state Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) within Croatia. One part of the Croatian population was killed and the other expelled from the territory of the so-called RSK, and Serbian paramilitary units aided by the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) occupied the territory and wanted to annex it to Serbia.

About 3,000 fans of the Serbian club from Belgrade came to the match in Zagreb (Croatian capital) and a few hours before the match there were fights between the Bad Blue Boys (fans of Dinamo, Croatian club from Zagreb) and Serbian fans on the streets. But the real trouble started with the arrival of the fans at the stadium.

In the destructive campaign, Serbian fans broke through the protective fence and started attacking Dinamo fans..

Croatian fans knocked down a fence in the north and stormed the field to oppose them. After the breakthrough, Croatian fans were violently attacked by special police units, who did not show similar enthusiasm for Serb fans. Such a disproportionate response by police units occurred, as some explain, due to the predominantly Serb ethnic composition of police units.

Shortly afterwards, the Croatian War of Independence began, in which Croatia won its independence. In the film, we later follow the 1998 World Cup and winning a bronze medal and the historical success of the Croatian national football team.

Participants in the events of that time and players tell us about their experiences and emotions in these historical moments.

In 1995, Croatia launched two major offensives known as Operation Flash and Operation Storm, these offensives effectively ended the war in its favor.

The war ended with Croatian victory, as it achieved the goals it had declared at the beginning of the war: independence and preservation of its borders.

The documentary is interesting and well structured, although it can be seen that foreign journalists still do not fully understand some things.

When the Croatian city of Vukovar was occupied by the Serbs, at the same time Croatia was attacked along almost the entire border, as well as at sea and inland.

Likewise, Croatia did not respond to that attack by attacking the villages, as journalist Martin Bell claims, those villages were under the control of Serbian paramilitary units and the JNA (Yugoslav National Army). The Croatian army was poorly armed at the time and there was no chance for a counteroffensive.

Croatia only managed to liberate those areas occupied by the Serbs in 1995, when it launched two major offensives called Operation Flash and Operation Storm. Vukovar was occupied in 1991.

The defenders fought with a much stronger enemy and inflicted heavy losses on him and thus not only bought time for Croatia to regroup to some extent, but also completely demoralized the enemy.

Croatia held an independence referendum on 19 May 1991, following the Croatian parliamentary elections of 1990 and the rise of ethnic tensions that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia. With 83 percent turnout, voters approved the referendum, with 93 percent in favor of independence.

As the war progressed, the cities of Dubrovnik, Gospic, Sibenik, Zadar, Karlovac, Sisak, Slavonski Brod, Osijek, Vinkovci, and Vukovar all came under attack by Yugoslav forces.

The United Nations (UN) imposed a weapons embargo; this did not affect JNA-backed Serb forces significantly, as they had the JNA arsenal at their disposal, but it caused serious trouble for the newly formed Croatian army.

Croatian national football team has played competitive matches since 1994, starting with the qualifying campaign for the 1996 European Championship. In 1998, they competed in their first FIFA World Cup, finishing 3rd and providing the tournament's top scorer, Davor Suker. Exactly twenty years later, Croatia reached the 2018 World Cup Final.

After a hard-won victory, the Republic of Croatia won its independence and became a member of the European Union and NATO.