Zvonimir Boban

L'exploit de la Croatie, qui a terminé troisième de la Coupe du monde 1998 en France, est stupéfiant. Une nation à peine établie a affronté et battu les nations les plus puissantes du monde, passant à un cheveu de remporter le trophée. Mais c'est bien plus que l'histoire d'une équipe de football talentueuse, c'est l'histoire d'une nation qui émerge des décombres de la guerre des Balkans et de la désintégration de la Yougoslavie pour se dresser fièrement en tant que pays indépendant sur la plus grande scène du football.

They were called ‘the golden generation’, the young Yugoslavian soccer players who won the Junior World Soccer Championships in 1987 in Chile. They became world-famous and today play in Rome, Milan and Madrid. But the country they represented in Chile no longer exists. Director Vuk Janic talks with soccer heroes like Zvonimir Boban and Sinisa Mihajlovic and visits the neighbourhoods they grew up in. Via the soccer, he tells the story of the disintegration of his country. The supporter riots in 1990 during the match between Red Star Belgrade and Dinamo Zagreb heralded the imminent war. Shortly after, the team fell apart. Seven years later, as national players of Croatia and little Yugoslavia, they compete in two charged qualification matches for the 2000 European Championships. Soccer is not war, but the war is never far away. The first match in Belgrade has to be cancelled due to NATO bombings, and the two national hymns are drowned in deafening whistles from the audience.

The story of the Yugoslavian football team who became youth world champions in Chile, 1987.

The life story of Ivan Gudelj, one of the greatest Croatian football players of all time.