Who doesn’t like a good underdog story?
Morocco and Croatia sadly did not make it to Sunday’s Fifa World Cup final in Qatar, but the two teams’ stunning performance may well be what is best remembered about this edition of the tournament – rather than the eventual victor.
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.
It’s not just the Global South that has become enamoured with the Moroccan team. French President Emmanuel Macron, who attended Wednesday’s Morocco vs France semi-finals, reportedly went into the Moroccan team’s dressing room after the match to fete Amrabat as “the best midfielder” in the tournament.
Equally if not more mesmerising – at least to me – has been the World Cup journey of Croatia. They may not have been able to overcome Lionel Messi’s Argentina in the other semi-final, but it is an absolute feat for a country of 4 million people to have the success it has over the last seven World Cups.
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.
In Euro 2016, Croatian fans were cast in a bad light after fighting among fans, and the country’s football association has also been battling corruption allegations.
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.
Against Brazil in the quarter-finals, he played the full 120 minutes before the game went to penalties – a feat others of his vintage would have struggled to achieve. The Financial Times in a recent profile quoted the maestro as saying “I live for football almost 24 hours a day”.
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.
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.”
As we marvel at football demigods Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi on Sunday night, let’s not forget that this World Cup, Croatia – and indeed Morocco – taught us that while naturally endowed talent may be a necessary ingredient for success, grit is equally important.
Bhavan Jaipragas is Asia Editor at the Post