Football in Eastern Europe is in a vice. On the one hand, globalization allows you to watch the best matches in the world from the comfort of your TV. On the other hand, the show offered by the national championships is increasingly poor. This leads to a drop in attendance at the stadium and a general lack of interest in what happens in local series. The situation is further complicated when in a country there are one or two teams that attract supporters throughout the country. Anyone who doesn’t follow Real Madrid and Manchester City certainly doesn’t watch the matches of the local team, but cheers for the most successful one, with a long history behind it and so on.
In Croatia everyone is supporting Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split. The former is the club from the capital, the latter is the symbol of the country’s second largest city and the coastal region of Dalmatia. Already in the days of Yugoslavia they were part, together with Partizan and Red Star, of the big four clubs that everyone supported in the country. Football fans support one of these four teams and then possibly also the local team in addition. With the dissolution of the Federation this love for Dinamo and Hajduk has remained and crossing the Croatian province, there is a succession of spray can writings: 1950 (foundation year of the twisted) o 1986 (birth of the Bad Blue Boys). When entering the cities it is not uncommon to come across real works of art on the walls: however, the theme is always the same Hajduk or Dinamo, Dinamo or Hajduk. Split mainly on the coast, Zagreb mainly in the inland regions, but with exceptions. However there are also pockets of resistance. An example of a city that tries to counter the invasion of the two great giants is Osijek.
The local team has always been a tough nut to crack even at the time of Yugoslavia, resulting in the 19th formation for participations in the perpetual ranking (fourth among the Croatians, after the two big ones and Zagreb, now fallen into disgrace). With the birth of the Croatian championship, Osijek has always played in the first division, winning a national cup in 1999. In recent years they have achieved second and third place and at the same time work began on the new stadium. The Nogometni Klub Osijek was founded in 1946 with the name of Proleter (later to become Slavonija), after the previous city association, the Slavija, had been dissolved by the Ustashe troops in the early 1940s and not readmitted by the subsequent socialist government.
In 1988, in the midst of the birth of the ultras phenomenon in Yugoslavia, the group of organized blue-and-white fans was also born: the Cohort, which take their name from the Roman cohorts. In the seventies there was a group called Shocks, but it was in the 1980s that the movement reached its maturity. Today the group occupies the east stand of the old man City Garden (literally “Garden of the city”). Just take a walk through the streets of Osijek, both around the sports facility and in the main traffic arteries, and you have a very clear idea of the group’s presence in the city.
The murals are very beautiful and cared for, made in almost any space that allows their presence. They speak of themselves as “local-patriots”, a rather elusive definition for us Italians, but which in the Balkans takes on a rather particular connotation. It differs from the prevailing nationalism, as in the eyes of the ultras that is the faith of the established power to which they are normally hostile and antagonistic. You are a Croatian and a Croatian lover, but not a nationalist. We love the nation and the city and oppose those from Zagreb and Split who want to impose themselves in Osijek as well.
According to a 2010 survey by Gfk, an international institute for market research, 5% of the Croatian population support Osijek, against 36% for Dinamo and 23% for Hajduk. While representing the third center for supporters, the forces in the field are very different. However, in the city you don’t see murals dedicated to the two great teams, as you can see in almost all the rest of the country. However, many “normal” fans wink at Split and Zagreb. It is then thanks to the ultras that the city does not totally give way and becomes like almost all the other cities in Croatia. Are the Cohort keeping the fire of the precept “support your local team” alive, they are the last bulwark of resistance for Osijek’s “local-patriotism”.
Gianni Galleri