Croatia OVERVIEW 
Croatia are one of the newest nations to have participated in the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers entering three in 1998, 2002 and now 2006 and qualifying for the finals on all three occasions. They took the France 1998 tournament by storm reaching the semi-finals and star striker Davor Suker claimed the Golden Boot with 6 goals. Unfortantley for Croatia, most of the 98 side were no longer playing when 2002 came round and they failed to match the impact of the previous tournament and although they defeated Italy, defeats in both their other group fixtures saw them eliminated from the tournament. They will look to put that right this time round and embrace the knockout stages again.
Scroll down the page for world cup statistics of Croatia and
background information on the country.
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Croatia World Cup Statistics
Confederation: EuropePrevious World Cup Appearances: 1998, 2002 Best Finish: Semi-Finals (1998) Croatia General Information
Capital City: ZagrebCurrency: Kuna Population: 4.4 million Official Languages: Croatian, Serbian Country History and Background
The lands that today comprise Croatia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the close of World War I. In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became a federal independent Communist state under the strong hand of Marshal TITO. Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often bitter, fighting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared from Croatian lands. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998. Player to Watch
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