And a third. Croatians invented something called rakija. If you're ever down there and and are served this by your hosts, the shots will never stop coming and you will wake up in a letter box without any memories of yesterday.
Oh shit, I had some of that once, via a journo who had been out covering the conflicts. Strongest, nastiest drink ever. Just thinking about it brings out a cold sweat. Fuck that stuff.
In 1986 we got off a train in Split at 6 am, having got on the boat train in London a day and a half earlier, and followed a widower who had smiled at us, offering “Sobe, sobe” to his apartment block.
Once inside, he made coffee then, with a great flourish and a huge smile, reached into a cupboard and announced “RAKIJA!!”.
Jimmy Greaves was probably the Rooney of 1966, albeit a bit younger. I suppose the difference between 1966 and 2018 is that the former were still living working class lifestyles before the tournament and some would continue to do so, as well as staying with mid-level clubs. The 2018 players are either very wealthy already or about to become so. Do they have a higher average wage than the French and Croatia squads, maybe any squad? They have also had some high class foreign coaching at Spurs, Liverpool and Man City, as well as playing with and against top class foreigners like Salah.
When my parents grew up down there, they used to "cure" everything with rakija.
Kid has a fever? Put a moist towel on the kids head, moist after dipped in rakija.
Kid has diarrhea? Chamomile tea with a shot of rakija in it,
Kid broke his leg? Put a wrap dipped in rakija around the leg.
Kid wants to be a rock star instead of tending to the cows? Send him to bed without rakija.
And a third. Croatians invented something called rakija. If you're ever down there and and are served this by your hosts, the shots will never stop coming and you will wake up in a letter box without any memories of yesterday.
I'd like to see evidence that Croatians invented this since every country in Central Europe and the Balkans produces pretty much the exact same spirit
Plus I'm going to guess it goes back a long way to a time when Europe was essentially tribal and the concept of "Croatian" didn't exist
I discovered last week when I went to see him give a lecture, that originator of the idea of "Flow", Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was from Croatia. Except he wasn't. in one of those very central Europe stories, he is Hungarian, and was born in Fiume in the "Kingdom of Italy" (in 1934 when he was born - a few years earlier and it was its own country "the free state of Fiume"), which is now Rijeka in Croatia. Now he's American.
He had one brother die in the siege of Budapest at the end of the second world war, and another in a gulag in Siberia.
But where is the word from? Many Balkan countries and Turkey have a spirit that they call something derived obviously from the same word - Rakija (Croatia and Bosnia), Rakı (Turkey), ракия (Bulgaria), Rakia (Greece and Albania), ракија (Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia) . In Romania, ţuică is sometimes called răchie.
But though the word may have been spread by the Ottomans (or it may not, i have no idea), that doesn't mean it's a Turkish word originally. It could just as easily come from what is now Croatia.
You're taking that too seriously, the comment about rakija.
And Rogin, Turkish raki is not the same thing. That's related to arak and anise flavoured. Like the Greek ouzu. Has a liquorice-like taste and turns foggy when you mix it with water, as they often do down there.
England is once again mounting pressure on their players. Not as stupidly massive and often laughable as before, but it's getting there. While I haven't heard one single person talk about an eventual final for Croatia and chances against either France or Belgium, not a single Croatian paper mentioning it, I have seen plenty of it about England. It has escalated and this football coming home business isn't very helpful.
Yes, there have been cocky remarks and comments from the Croatian front that we're going all the way now, but that's been more banter-like. England, plenty I have seen has been almost disregarding Croatia and a final is basically already achieved.
Croatia is about on par of expectations. Sure, there was hope that this generation players could achieve something special. Sure, there was hope that they might reach far and who could really argue if you look at the squad. But everybody I know and what I've read from other, this is really good and quite enough already. Some say that reaching a final, they would be very satisfied.
England is the other way around. Hardly anyone had any big expectations. Now, all of a sudden, a lot of people following England and writing about England have them down as 90 minutes from gold, not 180. The amount of pressure on the players must have risen significantly in just a few days. Yet, what have they met so far?
The difference between Croatia and England as they kick-off this evening is that Croatia has already won amongst fans and media. England has won nothing unless they win the final. Croatia walk on that pitch with everything to win, England with everything to lose. How much that affects the players I can't say but I'm sure it hasn't gone unnoticed among them what staggering expectations are on them from fans, media, stupid pundits. I'm not sure how this England copes with pressure. They've seemed very good at it so far, as the game against Tunisia showed, the game against Colombia and especially the game against Sweden where they were completely calm. But we're in the semi-final now, this team is built quite a bit around Tottenham and I have seen how Tottenham don't cope with that last bit of pressure too well.
It will be interesting to see images already from the tunnel and what the look on players faces are. In the end all of the above might not matter a bit but I do have the feeling as far as mentally goes, the Croatian players are under far less pressure than what the English are. Being a young squad, England, and far from as much experience in these sort of tournaments as Croatia have, that could be the vital bit of difference between the two tonight.
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