As Croatia celebrates the miracle result in Poland, a more sober look at the demise of team sports in Croatia, and the reasons behind it.
If your travels take you to Korčula, the hometown to one of the world's first tourist, Marco Polo, you should be aware that in addition to beautiful architecture, stunning views and crystal clear sea, in this small town there is a large sports history. The local water polo club in its time was a powerful force in this Olympic sport, and their display cases keep even the trophy of the European Cup Winners' Cup. Today, when Croatians are wondering what happened to their team sports, we remember those glorious days of the club which is now competing in the Croatian second division, which is equivalent to the third, as the best clubs play regional league, joining teams from the former Yugoslavia.
If you wish to meet one of the ministers in the newly elected Croatian government, the best chance for you to see them in person is to go to Metković, the city only slightly larger than Korčula. They also have something to brag about when sports history is concerned, as they also have a European trophy. In fact, when in Croatia you will encounter such places easily, if you go to Dubrovnik, Split, Zagreb, Koprivnica, Osijek or Bjelovar, even if you craved cream cake, and you went to Samobor.
Croatian clubs engaging in three sports in which Croatia is considered to be a world power - basketball, water polo and handball - played 82 european finals and brought home 41 European trophies. Semifinals are not to be counted. The city of Split, which likes to brag to be „the sportiest city in the world“ has five different clubs that won various European Cups. Jugoplastika, club oficially declared the best European basketball club of the twentieth century is now barely surviving and trying to qualify for the first division. Three of Split's water polo clubs, all three having won European titles in the past, are not even near the top of the table, and handball is on an amateur level. For the record, half of those trophies were won by Dalmatian teams, and in the present, no Dalmatan club is even close to playing a serious role outside Croatia, with the exception of water polo club Jug Dubrovnik.
When one thinks of handball, the first country crossing one's mind would probably be France. Their national team has dominated for years at all levels, and Croatian clubs are still historically more successful than the French, playing 25 European finals and wining nine titles, compared to that French played 22 finals and winning only five titles. However, the Croatian national team is now not even close to French. Similarly, in water polo, Serbia dominated the international stage, and if you look at the clubs statistics, Croatia has 22 finals with 13 wins, and Serbia 8 finals less and 3 titles less. Having this in mind, we should also mention that Serbia is almost twice the size of Croatia, and France is 16 times larger than Croatia.
What happened to team sports in Croatia? When we mentioned the new Croatian government and its ministers, one of them said that a role model for Croatia should be Israel. We are not getting into the political debate, this is a sports theme, but there are similarities; Croats, in a somewhat milder version of the Jews, fought for their place under the sun and have earned themselves a small and independent state, and just like Israel tried to promote its newborn state through sport. Unfortunately, for Croatia it was a mistake. As Israel was a very centralised state, Maccabi was established and was supposed to represent a new country, and has done so quite successfully for a long time. Croatia was a new state, but had an infrastructure built whilst being part of Yugoslavia, and particularly regarding sport.
Moreover, Croatian authorities in the early nineties ignored the fact that in Croatia there was already a developed structure of the organization for sport, but as the organization was established in Yugoslavia, it was to be changed, even the successful one. This bad idea was abused by people who see sports only as a tool for self-promotion and profit, and in this system saw their chance to get it. So each of these sports in Croatia got it's "Maccabi", although they were called Cibona, Mladost and Zagreb. After the departure of the late president Tuđman, the idea of "Maccabisation" (this is a largely accepted word in Croatian) was left behind, but the damage had been done. The financial power was already highly concentrated in Zagreb, and in conjunction with the desolation of traditional clubs in other cities, the process became irreversible. All of it took its toll, and sheriffs who were enthroned at that time rule these sports even today.
If a young athlete wants to get into the national team, he is virtually doomed to go to some of the Zagreb clubs even before the end of education. This being so, his sports growth gets interrupted on several levels. Apart from the fact that he left home young, he gets into a club that has no competition at all. Regional leagues interest nobody, average attendance of these games is easily comparable with the number of players relatives, club board members and the number of accredited persons for the game, and the actual quality of the competition is highly questionable. When, following the end of the regional leagues they get back in the national competition, matches are won almost wth no contest at all. In addition, these clubs have never been the ones who educate players, even in the former Yugoslavia, all three Zagreb club have mostly relied on bringing in players from the provinces, but in those days they were transfered as completed athletes and persons. Nowdays it is enough to show just a glint of talent, and some manager uses it as opportunity to make money and transfers a young and inexperienced athlete to some of Zagreb's clubs, which are lately used as a showcase for sale.
Success that the Croatian national teams had in these three sports will be hard to repeat, as long as a way to revitalize traditional sports centers is not found. If Split, Rijeka, Osijek, Zadar, Šibenik, and all those small communities don't get their chance to compete on equal terms with Zagreb, or even get a chance just to compete in a first place, there will be no progress. Playing with clubs from other countries did not bring anything good even for Zagreb clubs, let alone total Croatian sport. A handball player from Banja Luka is not very keen to win against Zagreb, but if a Zagreb player would be given the test to play regularly in Zadar, Metković or Split it would be more competitive, because players from those places live for those moments.
In the end, you may have noticed that in this analysis I did not include football. I did not, because football will survive, even if it's „Maccabisation“ was the first in Croatian sport, and was, and still is probably the worst of all the examples described. It will survive, because for people in Dalmatia football is eternal. In Dalmatia, the word „Football“ and the word „Hajduk“ are synonyms. People united in the project of Hajduk will save Croatian football, as the battle against such good will is impossible to win. If you do not believe me, look at the count of newly enrolled Hajduk members.
