FOOTBALL WORLD CUP - GERMANY 2006

The stamp has been issued in a 9-stamp sheetlet with one pendant and there is also a First Day Cover (FDC). Motif: Stylised immage of football player The current world football champions – the Brazilians – are the only national team that has participated in all the 17 world cup championships so far. The Brazilian team, popularly called “seleçao” won a record number of five champion titles, as well as playing two additional finals. They played as many as 89 games at the world cup tournaments and won 60 times, with 15 draws and only 14 losses. In Germany, too, in the period between the 9th of June to the 9th of July, Brazil is going to be the absolute favourite for the winning of the world champion trophy because they have one of the best teams ever encountered at football competitions. Not even in the sixties of the last century, at the time of the famed Pele, had Brazil ever had so many football stars as they presently do. The team led by the magic quartet – Ronaldinho, Kaká, Ronaldo and Adriano, to whom we should also add Robinho – actually has no weak point, starting from the dependable goalkeeper Dida, the defenders Cafu and Robert Carlos, all to Roque Junior, Edmilson and Lúcio. Thanks to the draw that classified Croatia into Group F together with Brazil, Japan and Australia, our footballers will have the honour to play against Brazil on the 13th of June in Berlin in the first game of the group at the World Cup tournament. Five days later, in Nurenberg, Croatia will test their strength against Japan, and the last game in the group against Australia is scheduled for the 22nd of June in Stuttgart. An interesting fact should be mentioned: the Croatian national football team has participated at every World Cup tournament since Croatia’s independence. After the dissolution of the former state, Croatia was accepted by the Federation Internationale de Football Association, FIFA, in 1992, and was included in the qualification games for the World Cup tournament in France in 1998. They then immediately won the right to play in the finals. After the 1998World Cup our players appeared in Japan and South Korea, and now they have again won the “visa” for the World Cup in Germany. When we add to this the appearances at three European Championships, we can conclude that the Croatian national team has been a permanent participant of the greatest football competitions. The greatest success they achieved was in the Coup du Monde [World Cup] where the ‘fiery team’, led by the selector Miroslav Blažević and the stars Zvonimir Boban, Robert Prosinečki and Davor Šuker finished third. The excellent result was also contributed by the best forward in the history of the Croatian national team, Šuker, the Golden Boot winner of the tournament, who had scored seven goals. Four years later, in Japan and South Korea, despite the favourable draw (Mexico, Italy and Ecuador), the Croatian national team had to depart from the World Cup after playing against the teams in their group. The selector Mirko Jozić has failed to “set” the game, so the two unexpected losses against Mexico and Ecuador and the victory against Italy were not sufficient for a pass through to the eight-finals. Croatia will have their third successive appearance at the world championship finals in Germany. The Croatian team has won the placement for the World Cup by achieving first position in the group before Sweden, Bulgaria, Hungary, Iceland and Malta. In ten games, Zlatko Kranjčar’s selected team had won seven times, three results were a draw, with the ratio of goals 21 to 5. Seven more teams have completed the qualifications without losses: The Netherlands, Portugal, France, Switzerland, Israel, Serbia & Montenegro and Spain. What is important for the selector Zlatko Kranjčar is that he has all the key players who had played the qualifications at his disposal, and one of the main characteristics should be a permanent standard and coordinated team work of our team. Unless there should be some unexpected injuries, the following footballers will play for our team: Tomo Butina (Stipe Pletikosa as stand-in), Darijo Srna, Marko Babić, Stjepan Tomas (Dario Šimić as stand-in), Josip Šimunić, Robert Kovač, Igor Tudor, Niko Kovač, Niko Kranjčar, Dado Pršo and Ivica Olić (Ivan Klasnić as stand-in). Ante Drpić