Dutchmen May Be Flying, but Not as High as Croatia

Somewhere high in the stands at Stade de Gerland on Saturday, a fan set alight a red flare, outlining for a brief while against the night sky the cavorting figures of Croatians celebrating a wondrous moment in their country’s sporting history.

The scoreboard told the tale at the time: Croatia 1, Germany 0.

It was not the final score. Two more stakes had to be driven into the heart of the three-time world champions and reigning European champions before they finally succumbed.

And even then, even after a 3-0 loss in the quarterfinals of the France ’98 World Cup, the Germans still refused to concede defeat.

Their coach, Berti Vogts, said they were the better team and twice brought the game’s officiating into question. Their former captain, Lothar Matthaus, also blamed the referee for the fact that Germany had to play short-handed for 50 minutes

The Croatians, meanwhile, were not about to listen to such whining. They won, they said, fair and square, and what’s more, they deserve to be playing France in the semifinals in Paris on Wednesday.

“I’m absolutely delighted,” said Coach Miroslav Blazevic. “This has to be considered a historic result. Never has Croatia come so far or done as much.”

But hadn’t the 40th-minute expulsion of German defender Christian Worns by Norwegian referee Rune Pedersen for a blatant foul against Croatian striker Davor Suker colored the result?

“It became easier for us,” Blazevic conceded, “but I don’t think that takes anything away from our victory tonight.”

Probably not, but there is no doubt that the Germans, knocked out of the USA ’94 World Cup in the quarterfinals by Bulgaria, did dominate the first 25 minutes.

After that, the game was marred by a series of fouls as both teams went hard into tackles and showed that there is little love lost between them. Germany had eliminated Croatia from the 1996 European Championship in England in a foul-ridden game, and this seemed to be payback time.

By the time Worns body-checked Suker near the touchline, referee Pedersen had had enough and out came the red card.

“The red card was a joke,” Worns said. “I am aware of no guilt.” Five minutes later, in injury time at the end of the first half, Robert Jarni fired a 20-yard shot from the left that bounced awkwardly in front of German goalkeeper Andreas Kopke and smacked into the back of the net.

The Croatian goal marked the beginning of the end for an aging German team that included no fewer than four 1990 World Cup winners--Matthaus, Jurgen Klinsmann, Thomas Hassler and Jurgen Kohler.

Seconds later, the halftime whistle sounded, and Vogts was left to ponder whether his players, who had pulled back from a 2-0 deficit to Yugoslavia and earned a tie and who had turned a 1-0 deficit against Mexico into a 2-1 victory, could come back yet again.

The answer was no. Instead of the Germans scoring twice in the final 20 minutes, as they had done against the Yugoslavs and Mexicans, it was the Croatians who did so.

Goran Vlaovic made it 2-0 with a shot from the right in the 80th minute and Suker completed the upset with his fourth goal of the tournament in the 85th minute.

What felled the Germans, therefore, was a left cross, a right cross and a Suker punch.

After the Croatian victory celebrations had died down, Suker was quite happy to rub salt in the Germans’ wounded pride.

“Yesterday, Berti Vogts made a comment that I think is rather unfair,” Suker said. “He said something about the small size of our country. References were made to David and Goliath. Nonetheless, I can thank him for that comment because that really gave us an incentive, it really spurred us on to our performance today.”

All Croatia, he said, would be celebrating the victory.

“It means an enormous amount for all of us, especially the 22 players,” he said. “But above all it is really important for our country, a country that is really having a great party tonight. Tonight we played from the heart and it was soccer that was the winner tonight.”

Then one final dig at Vogts.

“Last but not least, you have to remember that it’s not always the big guys who win.”

Vogts, whose dream of winning the World Cup as a coach after winning as a player in 1974 was dashed for the second time, said blame for the failure lay elsewhere. He hinted that he might retire.

“Until the sending-off incident, Germany put on its best performance in the World Cup,” he said. “We had the upper hand. There’s no point in going over and over the question of the red card. The fact is that Croatia goes on to Paris and we, the day after tomorrow, will be going back home.

Kohler echoed the criticism of the referee.

“I think you could say that the referee lost us the game. It’s a great shame because I don’t think it was fair to lose in this way.”