Boban at 94.6: “Modric’s Croatia was born from our own bakery in ’87”

As one of the best moments in his life and perhaps the best in his long career, Svonimir Boban characterized the path of the Yugoslavian national team u20 towards winning the 1987 World Cup, speaking to News Bulletin 247 and Christos Sotirakopoulos.

The Croatian veteran ace pointed to the great advantage that team had compared to the others in the ’87 tournament, that is, the most playing experience in the Yugoslav championship.

“We had tremendous talent, unimaginable, and yet there was always something missing on the field.” added and continued: “Then my Croatia, managed to do it and became much more effective. We learned to win and not just to play well and that’s how we reached the third place in the 1998 World Cup and created the continuity for the next generations, for Modric’s generation to stand out”. he reported.

Analytically:

What does he remember from the Yugoslavian u20 team that won the 1987 World Cup.



“They were the best moments of my life, and maybe the best football. Children we grew up with, children with dreams. We all had a great career starting together, we had a lot of talent. We wrote history, books write it. We beat teams like Germany, Brazil, Chile, we broke every record there was.”



– about the fact that most of the players in this team had a long career:

“That whole generation was talented, really. We were already playing first team although only 17, 18, 19 years old in the first division of Yugoslavia which was a very difficult and competitive league. But for us this was good, because our opponents, with those we played at that time, in the other teams, did not have such competitive experience as we had. So we faced them and felt better already, before we stepped on the grass.

All of us, those who played in that tournament, even those who didn’t join us proved with our careers afterwards that we were ready for big things.

-what does he think would have happened if they had taken part normally in the European 1992:

“Yes we could get it, but no one will know. We had already had a very good World Cup as Yugoslavia in 1990 but – again as always with Yugoslavia – something was missing. We had tremendous talent, unimaginable, and yet there was always something missing on the field. Then my Croatia, managed to do it and became much more efficient. We learned to win and not just to play well and that’s how we reached third place in the 1998 World Cup and created the continuity for the next generations, for Modric’s generation to stand out.

That team went above and beyond, all the national teams of the united Yugoslavia had everything but not the final result and that was our big difference but talent was always there.”