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Croatia: Football flags

UEFA Euro 1996
FIFA World Cup 1998
UEFA Euro 2008
NK Osijek

See also:

Croatia

UEFA Euro 96

Flag used in Euro 1996 - Image by Željko Heimer, 9 July 1998

In Euro 1996, held in England, the Croatian supporters used a checky flag with one square being itself checky.

Željko Heimer, 9 July 1998

FIFA World Cup 98

Flag used in World Cup 98 - Image by Željko Heimer, 9 July 1998

The town of Vittel, which hosted the Croatian national team, organized a magnificent reception when the players came back after their victory against Germany. The players were driven in a tourist's train around the town celebrating. On the train, and on some other places around, there was a remarkable flag, obviously used as a decoration rather then supposed to be a real national flag. The flag consisted in five stripes, the inner three being the Croatian national flag, while the outer two were made of checky fields.
This same flag was used soon afterwards, after Croatia had won the third place in the Cup; there were post stamps (small sheet of 4) showing the victorious team holding such flags. It was used again by supporters in several other sporting events.

Željko Heimer, 9 August 1999

UEFA Euro 08

Respect flag - Image by António Martins-Tuvalkin & Željko Heimer, 2 July 2008

The "RESPECT" national flags distributed by UEFA to supporters have a vertical white stripe added along the hoist, charged with the emblem of the Championships and "RESPECT".

Ivan Sache, 28 June 2008

Flags attached to the car windows on a small staff were used for the first time in Croatia in 2008. They are, apparently, produced by several companies, since there are several designs to be seen. I guess that they were produced somewhere in the Far-East as the coat of arms in the flag is of rather poor quality and often misplaced and oversized. Basically two general designs were being used as car (window) flags, each with several variants:

1. National flag.
- in proportions 2:3, roughly 30 x 45 cm in size, with an oversized coat of arms, entering the blue stripe on 1.5 rows of "squares" in the shield;
- similar, but with some commercial message printed on the white heading on the staff;
- similar, but with some kind of commercial ad printed in the middle of the fly part of the blue stripe (a kind of red oblong rectangle with white letters);
- similar, but ca. 15 x 22 cm in size, apparently with a better looking coat of arms.
2. Supporter's flag (as it was being advertised in media).
- in proportions ca. 2:3, roughly 30 x 45 cm in size in a checky pattern (that is, the banner of arms), with several variations in the number of squares (4x6 squares, starting with a red square in canton, this square also including the logo of the newspapers Vecernji list; 6 x 10 squares, starting with a white square in canton);
- a somewhat different variant, white with a checky border of two rows of squares around the edges, some 10 x 20 squares, with blue "3D" effect letters reading "HRVATSKA" over the top checky border and "CROATIA" over the bottom;
- the same flag seems to have been printed with some aditional logos in the white central panel, including the logo of the national footbal association.
These car window flags were extremly popular and it seemed that almost every three or four car in Zagreb was being equipped with at least one (usually with two, even, less frequently, with four) of them, more on the days when Croatia was playing.

Larger flags for hoisting from houses were also being sold, 50 x 100 cm in size, again in two variants - the national flag and the supporter's flag. The national flag has a badly centered coat of arms, of poor drawing (the "crown" being partially in white and partially in red stripe, and again entering the blue stripe too much, centering the rectangle framing the coat of arms in the middle of the flag. The supporter's flag consists of 9 x 14 squares, starting with a white square in canton.

Željko Heimer, 15 June 2008