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Boban remains soul of Croatian team
Posted: Wednesday July 08, 1998 10:42 AM
Special from L'Equipe, the French sports daily PARIS
(L'Equipe) -- Davor Suker may be Croatia's
striker, Miroslav Blazevic its guide, but Zvonimir Boban is the team's
soul. When asked about his relationship with Boban, Blazevic said, "Him and
me, it's two bodies, but only one soul." He also explained that it was
Boban who unveiled their Croatian identity, in 1990, when he fought with a
Serb policeman after a heated Dynamo Zagreb-Belgrade Red Star match.
"I've always felt Croatian. Being a Yugoslav never meant anything, but
it's something people don't know in the rest of Europe," Boban said. "The
key words, in the old regime, were hiding and forbidding. What would it
have cost to let people sing some old, historical songs, to allow more
freedom? The Croat people felt humiliated. Then there was the independence,
after a terrible war that took place strictly on Croat soil. I was playing
in Milan already. My father spent a year and a half on the forefront,
saving the family's pride. "The Croat state was born on May 30, 1991,
but Croatia wasn't liberated until the summer of 1996. That's the
independence's real date. At the Euro '96, we thought about it all the
time, it motivated us a lot. Even if we were too fanatical. Against Germany, for
instance, in the quarterfinals, one of us was expelled but we played like
there were 20 of us on the pitch, without a brain ... We separated from the
rest of Yugoslavia
like a guy who doesn't get along with his wife anymore, who goes out to buy
some cigarettes and never comes back. Ante Palevic's Croatia was dark.
President Tudjman's is luminous. That's the context in which the Croatian
league became a federation of its own. At the beginning, there only were a
couple players, but we quickly started to play ball. I missed the first
match, against the United
States, in October of 1990. I think I was injured. I played my first
official match in Rijeka, against Romania, in
December. But Croatia wasn't free and independent yet, and we wanted a lot
more than what we had. "I felt a lot more emotions when I put on
Croatia's jersey than when I put on Yugoslavia's. It was a great happiness,
more than love. At the beginning, Kranjcar, who played with Dynamo Zagreb,
was the captain. He was our idol. Then I became the captain, I was 22 or
23. I felt like a leader, but I always tried not to be too arrogant and to
respect the hierarchy, while remaining a poet deep down. "This team was
born again en route to Euro '96. We beat Italy, who'd
played the World Cup final, 2-1 in Palermo. That day, the whole world
realized what we were worth. Then in England, we
played a very good match against Denmark. They'd
won the preceding European Championships, and we beat them 3-0. Against
Germany, we only lacked experience.
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Boban has never been afraid to tell his teammates how he really feels |
"Then there was the qualification
for the World Cup. We were really bad, we were out of it. We have to thank
Denmark's Peter Schmeichel, who stopped all of Greece's assaults. Thanks to
him, we finished second, behind Denmark. Then we got a grip on ourselves,
against Ukraine. "Then there was the preparation for the World Cup, in
Poric. Things went berserk. The typical atmosphere from the Balkans. After
seven, eight days, everybody thought only about himself, there was no sense
of sacrifice anymore. The older players, Igor Stimac, Davor Suker, Slaven
Bilic, Aliocha Asanovic, Robert Prosinecki, Alen Boksic and myself, were
deeply shocked. So we called a meeting, we said everything we had on our
minds. When we feel the team is coming apart, we get together and we talk
in earnest. I've never hesitated telling someone what I begrudged him with,
face to face. "Our main defect is our lack of professionalism. We're not
at the same level as the Italians, the Spaniards or the French. Take Milan
AC, for instance. We weren't the best of friends but we all acted
professionally and we won everything together. In this team, we have a lot
of talent, but we don't have this professionalism, which could allow us to
beat Italy or France. "Yet,
we're going to play in a World Cup semifinal against France. To me, France
has the best team in the competition. Up front, they're less dangerous than
Brazil, but
more balanced. It will be very, very tough. When we got here, our goal was
to qualify for the second round. In the first match, against Jamaica,
everything looked big to us, a lot bigger than in reality. When we were
tied at one, we got scared a bit, and things started clicking. As a matter
of fact, this match was easier to play than it was to prepare for. We've
needed to get a feel for this World Cup, before we could understand it.
"Against Romania, I felt more elated than I've ever felt playing for
this team. More than against Germany. In the first few minutes, we were
lost. Then on the first important ball, everything fell into place. After
the match, we drank a lot and had a lot of fun. We couldn't sleep and with
Suker, my roommate, we watched a tape of the match. We talked to all of
Croatia on the phone. This match inoculated Croatia's population with some
virus. Now it's crazy about soccer and nothing will be the same ever
again." Copyright 1998, L'Equipe
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