EUROPEAN FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

Motif: A football on a green football field The 12th European Football Championship will be staged in Portugal from the 12th of June to the 4th of July 2004. 16 best national teams will be playing divided into four groups with four teams each. The competition will take place in eight cities and ten stadiums – in Aveiro, Braga, Coimbra, Faro-Loule, Guimaraes, Leiria, Lisbon and Porto. The hosts have invested 630 million dollars in the building up of eight new stadiums and the reconstruction of two old ones. The appearance of Croatia at the European football championship 2004 will be the second time for the national team to play in this competition since the acknowledgement of our independence, and the “fiery team” (as they are referred to in Croatia) had their kick off in England in 1996, when they managed to get into the quarter-finals. After having won against Denmark and Turkey in their group, and after losing against Portugal, Ćiro Blažević’s chosen team had put up a long fight against Germany in the quarter-finals, but the “Elf” have been both lucky and skilful to secure their victory (2:1), and later also won the European championship title. It has been recorded that the scorer of the first goal for the Croatian national team in the finals of a European or world championship was Goran Vlaović who scored a goal against Turkey. Four years later our team got stuck in the qualification games, so our footballers had to miss the European championship in Belgium and The Netherlands. Neither was it very brilliant in the elimination competitions for the current placement in Portugal. Headed by the new selector, Otto Barić, Croatia opened the qualification matches at home with a draw against Estonia (0:0), then lost in Bulgaria (0:2). Yet Barić managed to put his players in order and the “checker” players (chequer refers to the squares on the Croatian flag with a chequer-board in the middle) won five victories in six matches and the sufficient number of scores playing against Slovenia in Zagreb. The result in Zagreb was the draw 1:1, and in Ljubljana they won at 1:0, thus securing the right for the Croatian team to participate in the European Championship. Croatia is selected to play in group B with Switzerland (13/06 in Leiria), then with the current European champions – France (17/06 in Leiria), and England (21/06 in Lisbon). In group A, together with the host – Portugal, there are also Spain, Greece and Russia, in group C the competitors are Italy, Sweden, Bulgaria and Denmark, in group D there are Germany, The Czech Republic, The Netherlands and Latvia. The two best teams from each group will win placements in the quarter-finals that is going to be played in Lisbon (on two stadiums) and Faro-Loule and Porto. The semi-finals will be played in Lisbon and Porto, and the finals on the stadium “Luz” in Lisbon on July the 4th. It is expected that 1.2 million football fans from all parts of Europe will arrive in Portugal this summer. At the European championship competitions so far it was Germany who achieved best results, having won three titles (in 1927, 1980 and 1996), and in 1976 and 1992 they played in the finals. The French were European champions twice, in 1984 and 2000, and the former Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Italy, The Netherlands and Denmark, all had won once. The European competition, first called European Cup of Nations, started with qualification matches in the autumn of 1958. Many countries with powerful football teams were rather sceptical, so the first competition was run without Germany, Italy, The Netherlands... But in the following decades this competition developed into one of the greatest and most interesting sports events in the world. Two Croats have won their place among the record winners of the European championships – Dražen Jerković and Davor Šuker. Jerković, wearing the colours of the former state, won the silver medal at the European championship in 1960, and was also one of the five best scorers at the final tournament in France. On the other hand, Šuker is presently sharing first place with the Spaniard Raul on the permanent list of scorers at the European championships, including qualifications and finals, both having scored 19 goals. Šuker had scored 12 goals in the qualification matches for EURO 1996, and three more in the finals, and four in the qualifications for EURO 2000. Though our footballers have found themselves in an exceptionally difficult group, football fans in Croatia believe that the selector Barić will be able to put up a respectable national team choosing from the wider list of footballers, most of whom play abroad. On the list made up by Barić are: Goalkeepers: Stipe Pletikosa (Hajduk), Tomislav Butina (Club Brugge) and Joey Didulica (Austria Wien). Defenders: Dario Šimić (Milan), Robert Kovač (Bayern), Josip Šimunić (Hertha), Boris Živković (Bayer), Stjepan Tomaš (Fenerbahcé), Mato Neretljak (Hajduk) and Mario Tokić (GAK). Midfielders: Darijo Srna (Sahtar), Giovanni Rosso (Maccabi Haifa), Jerko Leko (Dinamo Kiev), Niko Kovač (Bayern), Marko Babić (Bayer), Igor Tudor (Juventus), Jasmin Agić (Dinamo), Srđan Andrić (Hajduk), Jurica Vranješ (Stuttgart), Milan Rapaić (Ancona) and Niko Kranjčar (Dinamo). Forwards: Dado Pršo (Monaco), Ivica Olić (CSKA Moscow), Ivica Mornar (Portsmouth), Tomo Šokota( Benfica), Ivica Klasnić (Werder), Tomislav Marić (Borussia Moenchengladbach) and Marijo Marić (Kärnten).