Fuck this.
Screw those "fans". Screw this act of flat-out terrorism. Screw that fucking mindset. Honestly, this mentality is so typical of the Balkans and proves that Croatians simply aren't ready to be part of Europe.
I'm so, so, so fucking glad that my parents decided to raise me in a civilized country. I hope the Croatian team advances very far just to spite those asshats. I fear UEFA might take a point away from us which would make qualifying so hard...
Well, I guess I know what you meant with your post (it's probably a natural reaction if you have any connections with Croatia), but I want to say a few things on this matter and some other things. This is probably how will media all around the world convey what happened. Those people are not fans. They have come to France with the only purpose and that is to do this and disqualify Croatia. The fact, though, is that hooligans will always exist. Everywhere. Not only in Croatia. We can see what happened with English and Russian people in France. Those hooligans are simply not representative of the whole country. And as such (maybe it's just me and my rational opinions) I don't understand why should I or anyone other in Croatia personally feel ashamed of what they did. Unfortunately, a person is not able to pick its own nationality and shouldn't be ashamed because of other morons who seem to share the same citizenship. Surely, it's not a good message for reputation of Croatia but I don't think that the most of people have anything to do with this. Of course, sometimes you can say something about a country as a whole if >90% of people think so. However, saying something based on 10/4500000=0.0000022% of people is simply absurd. Surely now everyone will talk about the hooligans and dismiss the fact that 99,99% of Croatian (real) fans behaved in a great manner. The same goes for all the other countries who made some incidents. I want to make clear, though, that I'm definitely not saying AT ALL that I like the mentality of a lot of/majority of Croatians, but still the hooligans act really has nothing to do with the mentality of other people (which I still don't like but that is just a different story, even though thankfully still on a much higher level than average balkan) and that's why I don't like when things are generalized too much and a whole nation is compared with a few hooligans. Not only Croatian, but of any nationality. And just while writing the post, news are reporting that Hungarian hooligans had a fight with police and also lit flares before the match. And also lit flares after the goal. This really has nothing to do with people's nationalities. There will always be idiots almost everywhere and that's it. The only difference is that Croatian hooligans are doing this on purpose to get Croatia disqualified so they are more radical than the others.
Even though, this is just a picture of what is happening in Croatia in the last few years. It's hard to explain for people who are not living here without writing a whole book but one can't deny that our country is in a huge crisis - economically, politically and ideologically. And yes, just like political institutions, our football association is corrupted. Me, just like 99% of Croatians really wanted to forget about that and everything for those 4 weeks and simply enjoy the Euro. Or also a lot of people don't even care that much because simply they don't think football is something too important. However, you know, there are always no-lifers for which supporting their own club and fighting/hating all the others is everything they have in their lives. And obviously this is how they decided to fight against our association. Besides, they think that throwing a flare at the stadium is the best they will achieve in their miserable life. But still, whatever is happening in Croatian football association isn't a good enough reason to do such a thing. This has to be solved with other, peaceful methods.
Another thing, and this is actually what scares me the most. I wasn't surprised at all when I saw the flares because I expected it. The hooligans have announced that they would do this on this match a few days ago. French police was very well informed about that and they knew about this possibility. They've also got a list of 300 people who can't buy tickets for Euro. However, those people have got tickets on other names from people in St. Ettiene. Obviously, no one is checking people at the entrance. And even bigger ?? is how they got the flares to the stadium. After the match, someone found the post on Facebook with a plan and they apparently got them in before the match and apparently someone announced all this on Facebook with a place where the flares are located (
https://s31.postimg.org/w6zgjxayz/image.png). And now even worse. Apparently, some Croatians (or the police, I'm not sure anymore) have got to know that this would happen exactly in 85th minute just before the match. And French police was once again informed about that. You can see on some videos that just before 85th minute they got in the area from where the flares were lit so they knew about this!!!! Ivan Perišić said after the match that he asked the police to attack them but their answer was: "We didn't get an approval from UEFA." Surely, this doesn't make the hooligans act any less disgraceful. But it all proves that the French organization is a true disaster and that they were able to stop this. I'm not calling it, but we should all feel happy if we don't see a bomb exploding in front of our screens before July 10. It doesn't seem as a huge problem carrying it to the stadium and making a massacre either.
As far as I've seen, they won't stop here. They said their wish is for our football association to get as many penalties as possible and the ultimate goal is to get Croatia disqualified from all the football competitions. I guess they won't disqualify Croatia but rather give it a conditional disqualification for now (just like Russia) with yet another huge fine. A little difference is that Croatia already has a punishment of playing 2 matches of WC qualifications in front of empty stadium. And apparently they will also give it a fine because some people on the matches showed some fascist symbols. It's not that I want to defend our corrupted association too much, but simply I don't think they can do too much about it. It's simply out of their might. If our country should have done something about both hooligans and a corrupted association a long time ago is another story. They should have, but simply they don't seem to care enough about it. Besides, they are corrupted themselves so that's not a good starting point. But the fact is that only the country can do something about it. Still, everything you can do is to put them in prison for a few years. That surely wouldn't stop other hooligans to do it and those same hooligans once they get out. The problems here are much deeper. Football is just one of the numerous things that are corrupted in Croatia. I don't even want to talk about the teams. What the hell do the teams have to do with all this? Just like I said the other day, I would still find it unfair if Russian/Croatian teams and most of the normal population would be punished because of what people from their countries did it (not going to call those people fans as they're not). But I guess UEFA benefits from all this as it fills their bank account.
This has left such a bitter taste in my mouth and I can't say that I'm sad or angry, but rather just dissapointed with everything. I was really so excited about EURO this year. And objectively, Croatia was one of the top best teams so far. But somehow I can't feel the same excitement after what happened. And the worst thing that our players feel the same. They were really never as motivated and self-confident as this time and I think they know they could get a historical result for Croatia. I'm just going to quote what some players said after the match. I don't think I have to explain that my feeling is that they won't be able to get back to their mindset anymore. Perišić: "Maybe it's best that we don't play at all than that these things keep happening". Rakitić: "We’ll have to see if we can play against Spain. Maybe we’ll have to go home.". Mandžukić: "We didn't deserve this". Besides, Modrić (maybe even Ćorluka) will probably be out for Spain and I'm not sure if Croatia can win against Spain without them. I think that Croatia will sneak through as it already has 4 points whichever way but then probably be out in the the next round. But maybe just like Perišić said, I really don't know what to do anymore and maybe disqualification is the only solution. Sad, but maybe truth. But in my opinion, the smartest decision from UEFA is to simply forbid Croatian fans to enter the stadium until the end of Euro. Yes, that would be a huge and harsh punishment to 99,95% of innocent, normal fans who have come or planned to go to France to enjoy the matches but I really don't know how to stop it anymore. As obviously, the hooligans won't stop here. Unfortunately, it is possible that they have already announced the plan on the Facebook page for the match with Spain. It's not 100% sure if this is just a lame joke but this really is a map of Bordeaux stadium and at this point nothing should be dismissed. Maybe they decided to go until the end this time. However, they're stupid (well, that's not questionable) if they think something will change if Croatia gets disqualified.
http://sportske.jutarnji.hr/euro201...-novi-plan-prekida-protiv-spanjolske/4451690/.
A positive note, it was announced that Croatian police has identified some of the hooligans from the stadium by pictures/videos and apparently French police has already started arresting them and they will hardly be able to get out of France. Hopefully something will be done about this finally. I really hope we can all forget for now what happened and just end this Euro the way it started and then finally do proper measures to stop this madness after Euro.
Uhm yes, that was long, and also sorry for the mourning which can be translated as "I want to love my country but let me just move outta here as soon as possible" which is not directly connected to Euro but I really had the urge to say something about all this and to what is it connected.
Which one is the best?
