Croatia

FOOTBALL IN CROATIA Football and other sports play an important role in the Croatian national identity. In fact, since becoming independent from Yugoslavia in the beginning of the 1990s, the small country has achieved remarkable successes. The 1998World Cup bronze medal came as a surprise to almost everybody.More recently, we have seen spectacular performances by Goran Ivanisevic, who won a historical victory at Wimbledon in 2001 after having to play the qualifying tournament. Another extraordinary Croatian performance came at this year’s Winter Olympics when Janica Kostelic became the first Alpine skier ever to win four medals (three gold and one silver) and that just two months after returning from amajor injury. This year’s World Cup team includes many of the stars of the 1998 team, including Davor Suker, who was top scorer in France with six goals and Robert Prosinecki – nowplaying in Portsmouth. In addition, the team boosts strong younger players, including the 23 year old Igor Tudor - the Juventus defender who was voted Croatia’s player of the year in 2001. THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY Recent years economic performance has been strongly correlated with results achieved by the National team. Simple correlation analysis (more rigorous granger causality testing is made difficult by the short time series available) shows a strong positive correlation between growth and the balance of matches won and lost. The recession in 1999 was mirrored by a number of losses following the 1998 success. In 2001 the first place in the qualifying group round wasmirrored by clear growth outperformance compared to most other European countries. STATE OF THE NATION Much of the reform process in Croatia has been aimed at achieving close integration with Western Europe and theEUin particular.Developments in the football labour market have in this sense been ahead of the broader integration trends. This is clear from the very high mobility of Croatian football labour, which has been driven towards the EU by large wage-differentials. However, not even the important Stabilisation & Association Agreement between the EU & Croatia from October 2001 includes direct measures to integrate EU and Croat labour markets. THE 2002 WORLD CUP Based on current rankings, Croatia faces a tough challenge in Group G. The group includes Italy and Mexico which are ranked 4th and 8th in the world respectively. The final group member, Ecuador, is ranked 36th by FIFA. Since coming third in France four years ago, Croatia’s results have been mixed, and its world ranking has dropped to 23. However, performance was solid during the qualifying round, in which Croatiawas undefeated and emerged as the winner of Group 6. Only two goals slipped past the strong defence in the eight qualifying matches – the lowest number of any country participating in this year’sWorld Cup. Croatia is facing Mexico in the group’s opening match, which could be decisive. With a win here, wethink Croatia could very well secure 2nd place in the group after Italy. Previous Appearances: 1 1998 Honours Semifinalists: 1998 (3rd)