Sport in Croatia - Team Sports - Association Football

Association Football

Football is the most popular sport in Croatia, and is governed by the Croatian Football Federation. The Prva HNL is the top division of the country's football league system, and operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the Druga HNL. Dinamo Zagreb is the country's most successful football club and the 2011 champion, with 13 total championships, followed by Hajduk Split with 6 championships (last one in 2005). The rivalry between these two clubs is known as the Eternal Derby in Croatia, with the two clubs combining to win all but one of the 20 championships ever contested in the league's history. The Prva HNL is ranked 19th league in Europe by UEFA, and Dinamo Zagreb is the highest-ranked Croatian club in Europe, occupying the 76th spot.

The Croatian Cup is the main knock-out tournament in Croatian football, and has also been dominated by Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split. The Croatian Supercup is contested between the champions of the Prva HNL and the Croatian Cup.

No Croatian Club has ever won the UEFA Champions League, however Hajduk Split, at the time Croatia's premier club, made it to the quarterfinals of the 1994-95 league, losing on aggregate to eventual champion Ajax.

The Croatian national football team won a bronze medal in the 1998 FIFA World Cup and Davor Šuker won the Golden Boot as the top goal scorer. The national football team has also played in the quarter-finals of the 1996 European Championships and the 2008 European Championships. The team is currently ranked 11th in the FIFA World Rankings (as of October 2012). Today, Croatia's most popular footballers are Luka Modrić, Mario Mandžukić, Ivica Olić, Darijo Srna, Ivan Perišić, Ivan Klasnić, Niko Kranjčar and Vedran Ćorluka, as well as foreign-born Joe Šimunić, Eduardo da Silva and Sammir. In August 2012, Luka Modrić was acquired by Spanish giants and 31-time La Liga champions Real Madrid for a deal totalling over £33 million, and he made his debut as a substitute in Real's 2-1 victory over Catalan rivals FC Barcelona.

Read more about this topic:  Sport In Croatia, Team Sports

Famous quotes containing the words association and/or football:

    The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.
    —French National Assembly. Declaration of the Rights of Man (drafted and discussed August 1789, published September 1791)

    In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.
    Donald Hall (b. 1928)