We’re on the verge of the greatest international sports summer ever! We have:
- Copa América
- Euro 2020
- CONCACAF Gold Cup
- Tokyo Olympic Games
And it all starts on June 11, 2021 with the European Soccer (Football) championships aka Euro 2020!
Yes, it is 2021 but they decided to keep the name, ok?
From now until the tourney starts, we’ll be giving you previews for every country in Euro 2020, DFO-style, of course. We will also provide previews of all the Copa América countries as the Copa América starts on June 13, 2021 right after Euro 2020 starts.
Euro 2020 will be broadcast in English on ESPN in the United States and on TSN in Canada. Univisión has the Spanish language rights in the US and TVA has the French language rights in Canada. Here is a handy calendar for you to use to schedule your vacation days:
Today’s team is:
Croatia!
That photo pretty much exhausts my knowledge of Croatia.
Why the fuck am I writing about the Croatian Soccer team then?
Because I live in San Pedro, dammit and we do indeed have a shitload of Croats that live here.
I actually know a little bit about Croatia through osmosis.
Nestled on the Adriatic Sea, Croatia is surrounded by a bunch of former USSR republics that all more than likely eat skewered meats with copious amounts of onions while drinking beers, firing weapons at each other and following that up with shots of some ungodly local grain alcohol.
Sounds like fun!
Croatia was part of Yugoslavia for most of the 20th century before finally being recognized and becoming an independent country in 1992 and member of the EU in 2013. Croatia is a member of the Schengen Region as well.
Croatia has some very cool looking ports and seaside villages. It’s also – well until the goddamn pandemic – become a top ten tourist destination. Mostly due to it’s friendly climate, beautiful coastlines and friendly locals.
They also filmed a lot of episodes of Game of Thrones there, since The Church of St. Ignatius in Dubrovnik doubled for the “Sept of Baelor.” The filming location of Kings Landing is in Croatia as well.
You can’t learn this shit in school folks!
Have you ever visited, yeah right?
I have not. My youngest daughter did and she said “It’s a cool place, Dad. It looks a lot like San Pedro.”
Thanks, kid.
Have you ever cooked Croatian food?
Damn skippy I have.
That’s Chevapi and here’s the link.
Let’s steal a few words verbatim from that post to pad my wordcount and cover up my distinct lack of Croatian knowledge.
“Cevapi was originally of Asian origin and it is basically a skinless sausage made from a variety of meats that can vary depending on which country is making them.
The version I first tried was the Croatian version and I’m going to stick with that profile for today’s meal.
I first tried cevapi in my old town [editor: and current new town again] of San Pedro which has a very large Croatian expat presence due to it having a port, a fishing fleet and a similar climate to Croatia. You can find Croatian food all over San Pedro.
Delicious! The cevapi I tried had a mixture of pork, beef and lamb and it was similar in profile to a gyro but the charcoal really carried through.”
Hey! It’s not plagiarism if I stole my own shit!
Team Schedule
Croatia is in Group “D” with England, Scotland and the Czech Republic.
Here is the Group Stage schedule. All times local start time.
England vs Croatia – 13 June 2021 15:00
Wembley Stadium, London*
Croatia vs Czech Republic – 18 June 2021 -18:00
Hampden Park, Glasgow
Croatia vs Scotland -22 June 2021 -21:00
Hampden Park, Glasgow
Yes that * is the lone Croatia “Home” game of the round played against England at Wembley.
Why do the teams I preview have to face their opponents in their own fucking countries? Fuck is that?
Team Preview / Top Players
Team Croatia is know as “Hrvatska nogometna reprezentacija” and “Vatreni” (The Blazers) and
“Kockasti” (The Chequered Ones). That would be due to the fact that their primary kits look like they were fashioned from a tablecloth taken from an Italian/American restaurant.
Top Player: Luka Modric, the 2018 Balon d’Or winner, even at the creaky old age of 35. Croatia has ridden him to various levels of success over the past decade. “The Real Madrid quarterback is a diminutive creative playmaker who is quick with his feet and possesses great vision.” According to Foottheball.com
Future star: Nikola Vlasic. Currently playing for CSKA Moscow and sure to be a key player for this team for years to come.
Why you should root for this country:
- You have a predilection for restaurant based sports fashion
- You like chevapi – and that’s a solid goddamn reason
- You have a strong dislike of Brexit and wish ill luck on the Brits and Scots
Why you should not root for this country:
- My eyes! Those kits done killed ’em!
- You hated the ending of Game of Thrones
- Your preferred condiments aren’t simply “fistfuls of chopped onion.”
Predviđanje!
Croatia is consistently playing above their pay grades, especially in the bigger tournaments. See the most recent World Cup. Playing against England at Wembley is going to be a fucking challenge but I can see Croatia forcing a tie or possibly even beating them. Playing a fixture in Glasgow against Scotland is also a goddamn pain in the ass.
This team has proven and will prove again that they are a tough out. They should make the quarter finals but I can’t picture them winning the whole thing.
Bosnian cevapi is the best, plus you get cheese crumbles with the bread and raw onion!
Croatia has also been mostly open during the pandemic, so probably still a top 10 tourist destination. Everyone goes to Dubrovnik, but Zagreb, the capital which isn’t on the coast, is also worth checking out. Even if they do have those deadly, deadly beasts known as trams. For many years I was convinced I was going to die via a runaway tram. Now I don’t think that any more, but it’s probably just the trams luring me into a false complacency
This is likely the last hurrah of Croatia’s Golden generation, so I would be shocked if they made if past the round of 16. But you never know
I’ve now received 7 junk phone calls in the last hour. All using that dumb thing where the caller ID is the same area code and first three digits as my number. Is that supposed to fool people into thinking it’s a “local” call?
Anyway, I’ve activated the “reject all unknown callers” feature, which normally I don’t do because I actually occasionally get legit calls from numbers I don’t have in contacts.
I don’t know that the fuck happened to trigger this assault.
A lead generator probably just sold your info. I don’t know of a way to trace it. Wish I did so I could determine which company/service to drop.
Bastards…..
Now at 10.
I’m pretty careful about not using my cell number for most things. Probably one of those food delivery apps sold me out, the fuckers.
The worst thing about job hunting is having to answer your phone to unknown numbers
I like how Bosnia isn’t getting any coastline.
“Please? Just a small beach>?”
“Ne! Ne dobivate vodu i sviđa vam se!”
(Not sure why the Bosnians speak English in this case)
This may come as a huge shock to the lawyers here, but Kim Kardashian failed the baby bar. She needed 560, got 474.
That is actually better than I thought she would do on any exam ever.
But, I have too many thoughts on the Kardashians, with the main one being that they are just a family of succubi.
Examples:
Kris Humpries
Kanye
Lamar Odom
Bruce Jenner
They didn’t seem terrible (well, Kanye was just a little less nuts) before they got involved with a Kardashian. Then things went to hell.
The only thing that surprises me is that she admitted it.
Not one mention of Nazis. I’m proud of you.
Croatia was part of Yugoslavia, however, not surrounded by former USSR Republics. Unless you want to count puppet countries from the Warsaw Pat, in which case
/knocked off pedestal by just a hail of rotten fruit and delicious chevapi
It was more a reference to this:
https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/collaboration-outside-of-germany/croatia/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e#Legacy
Sometimes, a history degree is a curse.
Ghaaaaaa. Lovely. Wonder if we’ll be treated to a Ustaše salute during the tourney…
Also couldn’t help comparing and contrasting the “mere work-camp” quote with the “normal tourist visit” quote about more recent events.
Sometimes?!
Sorry for the disruption, but…
Remember the New York Jets? They’re back. In baseball form.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s60hHhEDtbw
That probably has happened before…in Little League! How embarrassing, and hilarious!
There. Were. 2. Outs.
Also, the Pirates have now hit 3 solo HRs and are only one run down.
Don’t get your hopes up, they are always the Succo’s. I have had a lifetime of this shit. Nutting needs to die in a fire.
Gumby says the Pirates are MLB’s gag reel. He’s not wrong.
Yup. Fucking avaricious cheapskate. Sigh…
Well, we’ll always have ’79.
Yeah, the video title is extraordinarily kind to the Pirates. Baez didn’t do anything particularly clever, he just gave the Pirates an opportunity to do something incredibly idiotic.
I saw that live just before driving into work. It was awesome.
I was curious how they scored that play. “Mental error” aren’t errors, so they called it a “reached on fielder’s choice” for Baez, with the advance to second a throwing error on the catcher.
The funny part is, if they had tagged Baez out before he got to first AT ANY POINT the run still wouldn’t have counted because it would have been a force-out third out.