Why Morocco and Croatia’s Luka Modric are the real winners of the Qatar World Cup
- Morocco made World Cup history by becoming the first Arab nation, and first African side to reach the semi-finals of the tournament
- Croatia, a country born out of the Yugoslav wars, with a population of 4 million, continues to punch above its weight on the global football stage
Who doesn’t like a good underdog story?
Morocco’s achievement of reaching the semi-finals, and the significance of that for the Arab world, has been copiously discussed.
In the first World Cup held in an Arab country, breakout star Sofyan Amrabat and the mostly foreign-born Atlas Lions won supporters from around the world as they became the first Arab team to reach the quarter-finals and the first African team to reach the semis.
Apart from this year’s progress to the penultimate stage of the tournament the Vatreni, as the team is called, was a semi-finalist in 1998 (losing to winners France), and finalists in 2018 against champions France. (I’m sensing a pattern. Hey Croatia, try avoiding France next time!)
Multiple commentaries have pointed out that the Vatreni’s performance is all the more impressive given the state of disarray they had been in recent years.
So just how have the Croatians come so far? Is there some secret recipe on how to punch above your weight? Something that a small enterprise swimming in a sea of multinationals, or even a small state navigating great power politics, could emulate?
I think there are two things worth noting. First, to succeed as an outsider, visionary “lead-from-the-front” leadership is a necessity, not a luxury. For Croatia, 37-year-old captain Luka Modric – who grew up in the turmoil of the Yugoslav wars – played that role.
Underrated at the start of his career for his relatively diminutive 1.72m frame, Modric has wowed pundits by his indefatigability despite his age.
The other attribute that I think contributed to Croatia’s success is the team’s collective mental resilience.
Perhaps it is reductivist to suggest that this has to do with the country’s national DNA, though it may well be the case: forged from the ambers of strife, thrust into nationhood just three decades ago, ‘getting on with it’ in tough times seemed second nature to the Vatreni.
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Even striker Bruno Petkovic suggested this was the case. Last week he said one of the reasons for the team’s mental resilience was that “we are a small country”.
He said: “Even though as players we are young, we know how our country was made and gained independence in the 1990s. We learned about this from our parents. We learned you fight, you work hard and you don’t get anywhere without that.”
Bhavan Jaipragas is Asia Editor at the Post