Let’s just say it was a long night. All around this village, on an Adriatic island where cars were banned many years ago and the locals amble around at a pace that would make Andalusians look like sprinters, flares ignited, strangers hugged wildly and you could hear an entire country roar.
They say voices carry on the sea. Believe me they do. I am in deepest Dalmatia, Croatia’s rugged and beautiful coast. To see our neighbours’ hearts burst open with pride is truly a beautiful thing because Croatia has been through the mill in recent years.
Unlike the football team, the economy has underperformed dramatically. But all that is forgotten when one of their own, the diminutive Luka Modric from Zadar, shows that combination of talent and grit that defines great players.
Let me make a disclosure here. I have been coming to this part of the world for three decades. Many years ago, we bought a house here and Croatia is like a second home for my family. Although mine is passable, my children speak Croatian impressively, hang out with teenage islanders all summer, and the missus hunkers down every morning with the locals chatting about the crucial details of the day, such as what’s for lunch, what’s fresh from the sea and who is sleeping with people they shouldn’t be.
Football is taken seriously here.
The year we moved in, we were the only foreigners on the island and there was understandable curiosity about who were these Ircis (Irish) who had decided to come to this out-of-the-way place. On my first day here, I was pushing my daughter, now 18, in a pram at the tiny harbour. A fit-looking lad, in great shape, with a ponytail, shirtless and smoking a fag approached me, shook my hand.
Dobro Dosli na otok!
Igrate li nogomet?
Translation: “Welcome to the island, do you play football?”
That evening on the village square when the blistering sun went down, I togged out for the daily village football match. I have been playing ever since.
The lad with the ponytail was the village priest, a gorgeous person, immensely kind, wise, great fun and a fine poker player who, it is rumoured, was “banished” here for being associated with the Croatian anarchist party. A real leader and an ideal priest, he is available to all, non-judgmental and truly Christian.
During the war, from the pulpit, he told the locals that anyone who laid a finger on the few Serb families who lived here would not be welcome across the threshold. In so doing, he certainly saved lives and property at a time when the hills on the mainland some 20 miles away were held by the Serb army.
That was Krajina, home to Serbs for hundreds of years. They are now gone, having fled the Croatian army’s counter attack in August 1995. But here they weren’t touched.
And can these people play football? This place is a bit like Inish Meain in the sun. Every evening at least two generations tog out, and the level of skill displayed by these farmers, fishermen and labourers is quite astonishing. For an Irish journeyman it’s frankly embarrassing. It is not for nothing that the Yugoslav teams used to be called the Brazilians of Europe. They have technical ability unrivalled almost anywhere.
It’s wonderful to watch Croatia celebrate this culture and talent on the biggest stage: the World Cup. And Croatia needs something to celebrate, because since the last time the national team featured in the last four, the country’s economy has stagnated.
Real GDP growth in Croatia has lagged that of its Eastern European and Balkan neighbours since 1995. The Croatian economy is only around 60 per cent bigger than it was in 1995 – by comparison, Ireland’s is over 240 per cent larger.
The country had a population of 4.8 million in 1995; today is it just about 4 million. They say here that every month the equivalent of a small-sized town leaves Croatia. Many of them come to Ireland – 18,621 Croatians have been issued with Irish social-security numbers since 2013.
Croatians see Ireland as an economic nirvana. A Croatian ska outfit, called Postolar Tripper, topped the national charts in 2016 with a song called Irska(Ireland) about young Croatians emigrating to Ireland.
For Croatian emigrants money is clearly the biggest attraction in Ireland. The average salary after tax in Zagreb is €715 per month, as against €2,468 in Dublin. The local press regularly carries stories warning Croatians that they need €1,700-€2,000 to get set-up when they first move to Ireland. They also advise those looking to come to Ireland to avoid Dublin, due to rental prices and to settle down in smaller towns instead.
On Thursday night, one of my neighbours, a little tired and emotional, told me that although he was delighted for the country, the feeling was also bittersweet because the success of the football team underscored the failure of the economy.
He asked how many of the young lads and girls in their Croatian chequerboard jerseys, singing and dancing at the harbour, would have left the country by this time next year? How can a small country punch above its weight globally in football and yet fail so miserably economically? Then he said: “Look at Ireland, how come you guys did it? You were poor like us once.”
This is important to note: while Ireland might not feature in football, what the country has achieved economically and socially in the 30 years since Euro ’88 has been truly phenomenal – as impressive and unlikely as Croatia’s achievement in the one game that really matters to the world.
The first time I was ever on a plane was in 1989 at the age of 16 when I went to Split, Croatia for a two week holiday with my cousin’s family. Actually, we spent the two weeks in nearby Trogir, beautiful spot. Of course it was in Yugoslavia at that time. A plate of delicious spaghetti bolognaise (or similar) by the beach cost something like 8p and we had to carry about bags of the rapidly inflating local currency – I think it was the dinar if memory serves me correctly. I remember joining in with a group of… Read more »
Did you tell the fella you were talking to that the Irish youth view Ireland the same way the Croatian youth view Croatia. They vote with their feet. Leave my cynicism aside. Can you not see that you speak as if the economy were something that is external to the popoulaion of the countries you mention. The Irish youth have no future McWilliams if this dialogue represents the prevailing narrative. I’m just back from bristol UK. The cost of living excluding rents and petrol I’d say is at least half what it is here. Example. I could insure and tax… Read more »
I met a young Croatian lad working in the Anglers Rest, Strawberry Beds (was having a meal for my mother’s 75th) on the night of the Brazil – Belgium quarter final – what a nice chap. I must go back and congratulate him on their second place. I also remember the word ‘Irska’ from my visit in 1989 and meeting the Croatian ambassador at one of your book launches near Stephen’s Green, he was happy to hear my praise for the lovely town of Trogir. I must go back for a visit and see if Trogir has changed much. In… Read more »
Is there some kind of amnesia going on here. It was only 5 years ago, in 2013, that it was being reported that 300,000 people had left Ireland in the previous 4 years.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0509/391211-emigration-report/
how long before we see something similar again in Ireland? David are you telling them to avoid us like the plague?
Adam, I think you are aren´t allowing for how Rugby and GAA´s professionally organised set-ups have lapped up the imaginations of the kids across Ireland for 10-15 years now. Soccer is a very distant 4th place compared to say, in the early to mid-nineties, when it was seriously on the up, and well ahead of Rugby and threatening the GAA due to pure popularity. Rugby and GAA have adapted over the years and been happy to learn lessons from soccer and from each other. They also realised they were not in competition with each other and are actually complementary if… Read more »
Dear David, I also come to the Dalmatian Coast every year (Cavtat) .. I met you once at the Dalkey Book Festival, would be great to meet up here .. I am Irish but a resident of Thailand. Have been following your blog since you began and loved your books. Sylvia
I would term it the Singapore scenario. To be completely rubbish at spectator sports, and as a result achieve prosperity, higher education standards, lower corruption, etc… Unfortunately, a lot of time is still wasted on spectator sports, in Ireland. Croatians are amazing people. I would not compare them to the rest of Eastern Europe, as they had a war in the 1990s. And that required a recovery. The priest/soccer player is to be commended for saving the lives of the Serbs in the area – even if he could not prevent the military from bullying them out. At least they… Read more »
This comment gets to the essence of it. [ On Thursday night, one of my neighbours, a little tired and emotional, told me that although he was delighted for the country, the feeling was also bittersweet because the success of the football team underscored the failure of the economy. ] Those 800,000 people that left Croatia for Germany, Germany, the UK, Scandinavia, Canada, Ireland, etc… were all young people – who are at the high energy point in theit lives, who could transform Croatia. Like the national squad, they all earn money abroad. Croatia’s soccer success story, is the mirror… Read more »
In life people are faced with choices. Sport is fine as exercise. But when it gets big enough to interfere with enterprise or other activities there is a price to be paid.
The opportunity cost of participation in sport at a serious level, is high. The two largest economies in the world are number 1 and 2 in the Olympics. Number 3 is usually Britain. The rest of the top 10 will include Russia, Germany, France, and perhaps Australia.
To carry the costs, requires massive scale.
A moment of madness from official Ireland. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Ireland-To-Move-All-Its-Oil-Reserves-Out-Of-The-UK-As-Brexit-Nears.html Surely, considering if security was a concern, Ireland’s reserve oil would be located in Merseyside (with a large population that is part Irish) ? The official war on Brexit waged by Ireland’s media and politicians is now reaching the point of madness. What happens in the months of Feb/March/April, when requirements are highest and there is a stormy sea, and the journey from the North of Spain, or Denmark has to be made ? Apart from the enormous costs ? [ well….at least they did not say it was to save money….].… Read more »
Croatian economic suggestions.
(1) Food is crap – learn from your trans-adriatic neighbours.
(2) Scrap and renew your government to 100 MPs only. Gov too big.
(3) Advertise
(4) Learn English. Serbo-croatian is dead.
(5) Tax havenize
Croatia’s economy will not make a spectacular turnaround any time soon. Of course the salaries being offerred to Croatian footballers by high paying clubs will go up substantially. Modric might even end his career with Robbie Keane, or perhaps in Japan – and make a lot of money. And some of the others will also do very well. Croatian tourism will also benefit from the free advertising. As will the number one airline serving Croatia….the one led by the attention seeking loud mouth from Westmeath…Ryanair. However, that still leaves a problem for many young people. Hopefully, things will get better… Read more »
Ireland can teach them a lesson. If the Croats can engineer a housing bubble, throw their borders open to anyone with a tall story, imitate the Irish media and stifle debate, embrace a monstrous anticlerical fantasy, rewrite their history as a cliched inverted morality tale and show determination to place themselves in the vanguard of the pc parade, if and when any of those emigrants ever decide to return home they will find that they don’t have one any more and that Fr Trendy is their new, non-judgmental president.
A Croatian sends his regards to you Mr McWilliams! Enjoyed the read. Pretty well informed. Unlike the comment section. LOL
In all great ‘fairy tales’ there’s a dark underbelly waiting to be teased out. Croatia’s journey to the 2018 World Cup Final was a complex, thrilling & ‘disturbing’ spectacle. Like many others, I’m sure, I was mostly unware of the ‘troubled significance’ of Association Football in Croatian culture and history, having assumed the ‘hooligan fan elements’ were just that and nothing more. Having read deeper into the subtext of the mainstream media’s breathless reportage on behalf of FIFA’s mandatory tournament ‘success narrative’, I’m left hoping that, after the initial euphoria subsides, the progressive forces in Croatia seize this opportunity for… Read more »
I believe the biggest danger in western democracies today is lack of information. News outlets don’t report news and events. Reportage is editorialised either by omitting important relevant facts or inserting comments to sway the listener or reader. This creates a fault line between the events and the reader or listener. I have no problem with editorials as long as the are classified as such. Good ethics ,if there are any in media, should require that news be presented untainted. Most professions require that information, be it medical ,legal, financial or other, be presented without bias so that we can… Read more »
THE MESSAGE FROM DAVID TO CROATIA
-> BORROW
-> BORROW MORE
=> BORROW EVEN MORE
.
.
.
YOUR POLITICANS CAN BE BOUGHT
-> YOU WILL INDEBT YOUR PEOPLE
-> AND YOU WILL LOSE CONTROL OF YOUR COUNTRY
=> BUT YOU CAN CALL YOURSELF A SUCCESS!
.
.
UNFORTUNATELY STANDARD PLAYBOOK OF THE BANKERS
-> WATCH OUT CROATIANS
-> OUROBOROS IS HUNGRY
-> FRESH SHEEP NEEDED TO SLAUGHTER
=> YOU MUST BE IN THE TARGET SIGHT
.
.
-> PREPARE FOR PROPERTY BINGE
-> HUGE DEBTS
-> AND BEING FOREIGNERS IN YOUR OWN NATION
EXCELLENT COMMENT BY STEFAN ON OUR RECENT REFERENDUM ON MURDER
-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2I5cdNgOoI
DIVERSITY AND BANKERS
-> HOW US HOUSING BUBBLE WAS REALLY CREATED
-> https://youtu.be/8Nbvd3FOLUA?t=466
Bread and circuses is the order of the day.
World cups and food banks are the opiods of the masses.
A phrase used by a Roman writer to deplore the declining heroism of Romans after the Roman Republic ceased to exist and the Roman Empire began: “Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.” The government kept the Roman populace happy by distributing free food and staging huge spectacles.
Bread and circuses | Define Bread and circuses at Dictionary.com
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/bread-and-circuses
Banks will not release what they keep in storage for their clients. Storage fees are paid but it is becoming obvious that the gold allegedly stored for the client does not exist. The gold storage programs operated by the banks is a scam, a fraud and a crime. people are awaking to this fact. Do not store anything of value in the banking system or even in the the storage locker. Keep your valuables in private storage facilities or at home. Do not save your money in the banking system. The choices left are limited. Save in solid assets and… Read more »
Hi David,
If you care to watch this you might learn how Brexit is good for democracy Jacob Rees Mogg;
https://youtu.be/vUKjTPPcOdQ
Ireland has the second highest debt per GDP. Maybe we’ll all be emigrating to Croatia in 10 years!
The next great disruption will remove all the requirements for parking lots leaving lots of land to be developed into housing and gardens and parks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVm74yE0aUE&t=159s
Irelands national debt increases at 19,000 Euro a minute. or 1.14 million an hour or 27.3 million a day or 10 billion a year or 2092 per person or E8369 per family of 4. Can you afford this new borrowing added to the existing debt? No?, I did not think so. Can you say Debt Jubilee? https://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/ireland https://moneybuffalo.com/debt-jubilee ”Summary I’m not going to wait on a national or international debt jubilee to solve our current debt problems. Instead, the one way we can all make a large immediate impact on the debt figures is to not be in debt ourselves.… Read more »
Apologies, I meant to say second highest debt per capita : https://thecodeisbroken.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/politics/#more-432
Second worst in the world debt per capita after Japan but we cannot print money. That’s real debt unrelated to the fluctuations of GDP
‘the more I think about it, the more I think Croatia today is like Ireland in the 1960s’
‘99.3%: Croatia, the Most Racially Pure Caucasian Country In The World’ by Paul Bradbury.
total-croatia-news.com/lifestyle/29956-99-3-croatia-the-most-racially-pure-caucasian-country-in-the-world
*popcorn*
One of my childhood school-friends runs a music festival in Croatia. I remember sitting with him in The Spotted Dog pub in Digbeth one cold winter night discussing his plans to uproot his life & take the risk on a Big Adventure. It’s worked out ‘quite well’ for him!…I was planning a trip to Tisno this year with my son but it had to be shelved. Next year maybe…
https://loveinternationalfestival.com
I’m looking at faded Polaroid snapshots from Dubrovnik in the mid-1970s having rooted them out of the family photo archive. Prompted by re-reading this article & then reading an article on ‘Over-Tourism’ which focuses on The Pearl Of The Adriatic. Since I morphed from youthful idealistic optimism to middle-age misanthropy, I’ve been guided by this self-penned aphorism: “Travel only broadens narrow minds”…… My flaneur voyaging across Europa these past few years whilst masked as ‘Brexit BrummieBoy’ has only re-inforced the lessons I learned as a teenage waif hitch-hiking & ‘Trans Europe Express’ inter-railing across pre-EU countries. An insight which formed… Read more »
Meanwhile the destruction of democracy continues apace. Bread and circuses distracts.
https://needtoknow.news/2018/07/list-deep-state-insiders-democrats-republicans-trying-destroy-trump-pursing-peace-russia/
A direct quote about the failure of the economy as I have long predicted because of the money system we use. As already noted every unit of fiat currency is credit (a debt). The debt is increased along with the money supply. The QE solution to the 2008 debacle only increases the risk of further default. people borrow to exist and finally are overwhelmed. That final moment is here soon if not arrived. To paraphrase the remark from Bill Clinton, ”It’s the debt stupid”. Mean while bread and circuses divert the attention. Dave from Denver… Many Americans Are Living In… Read more »
Reality check:
‘The real tragedy is the disappointment so many Croatians felt when the players for whom they’d so fervently cheered invited Thompson on stage, turning what could have been an uplifting celebration of national unity into a reminder of the country’s bitter divisions and its bloody past.’
‘In Croatia, Nazi Sympathizers Are Welcome to Join the Party
The national soccer team celebrated its strong World Cup showing alongside a singer who glorifies the country’s fascist past. But it shouldn’t have come as a surprise.’
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/31/in-croatia-nazi-sympathizers-are-welcome-to-join-the-party-thompson-ustashe-fascism/
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