History of football in Croatia Valeri 2At the end of the 19th century, football was popularized in Croatia by Franjo Bučar. When this beautiful game first appeared, its Croatian name was “Nogomet”. The first Croatian clubs were founded before the First World War. Some clubs included HASK and PNISK in 1903, Hajduk and Gradanski in 1911. The Croatian Football Federation was founded in 1912. After World War I, Croatians played a major role in the founding. of the first football federation. Its headquarters were initially in Zagreb before moving to Belgrade in 1929. The two most popular clubs in the country are rival clubs Hajduk from Split and Dinamo from Zagreb. Hajduk, commonly known as Hajduk Split, is a Croatian club founded in 1911 which participated in the national championship of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Dinamo was commonly known as Dinamo Zagreb or referred to by its nickname Modri ​​which meant "The Blues". This club has won fifteen Croatian Championship titles, twelve Croatian Cups and four Croatian Super Cups. They have been very successful and have been part of the Croatian First League since its founding in 1992. April 2, 1940 marks the date of Croatia's first international football match against Switzerland. After World War I, the Croatian Football Federation joined FIFA as the representative of the Independent State of Croatia in 1939. Croatian clubs achieved good results in the Yugoslav First League and Yugoslav Cup in previous decades. Hajduk and Dinamo formed half of Yugoslav football's Big Four. In 1967, Zlatko Cajkovski of German club Bayern Munich became the only Croatian manager to win the ...... middle of paper ...... which I think is better. We went to Austria [and Switzerland] to win the Euro and we are going [to Poland and Ukraine] with the same ambitions now. -Slaven BilicFootball is the most popular team sport in Croatia. By participating in official and unofficial matches, the national team strengthened the unity of Croatian culture. After Croatia's success at the 1998 World Cup, Tudman declared that "victories in football shape the identity of a nation as much as wars". American politician Strobe Talbott predicted that Croatia's growth in football would influence the nation. The national team was welcomed by 100,000 people from all over the country upon their return from the Valeri 5 World Cup where they placed third. Although relations between the team and its nation have weakened since Tudman's death in 1999, the team and football remain patriotic traditions in Croatia..