Euro 2008

London

Croatia kick off their Euro 2008 campaign on Sunday against co-hosts Austria. Given Slaven Bilic's side humbled England - twice - in the qualifiers, the Croatians will be confident they can reach the knock-out stages of the tournament.

But even before a ball is kicked, Croatia can claim one victory. With a population of just 4.4m, it is the 'smallest' country to reach the Euro 2008 finals. Yet despite lacking the natural resources of, say, Scotland, Croatia have qualified for three European Championships and two World Cups, reaching the semi-finals in 1998, since becoming independent in 1991.

That is a better record than Russia, whose population of 142.5m is 32 times that of Croatia. England, without a European Championship title, boasts a population of just under 50m.

But football is not the only sport that Croatia excels at. It is a nation that has traditionally also done well at tennis, handball, basketball and water polo.

As BBC TV presenter Adrian Chiles, whose mother is Croatian, points out, these are successes that have been achieved with not a lot of money and comparatively few facilities. The national tennis federation's annual budget, for example, is a couple of hundred thousand pounds while Wimbleon championGoran Ivanisevic had to fight hard to get access to one of just 10 courts in the whole of Split as he was growing up.

Chiles attributes Croatia's sporting successes to intense national pride. "Don't forget, it's a country that recently fought a war for the right to wear their own shirt, and that is a monumental thing for any Croatian to do," he said.

That probably explains why Bilic played in the 1998 World Cup finals with a fractured hip.

Maybe Ivanisevic's volatile character - he broke over 100 rackets in his career - gives a clue as well. He wanted to win so, so much. "I go kill myself", he said after losing the 1998 Wimbledon final to Pete Sampras. And when analysing his racket-breaking theatrics, he opined: "Today's players, they do not know how. If you are going to throw it, you break it. You have to show commitment."

My colleague David Ornstein recently interviewed former Dutch international Ronald de Boer, who questioned just how much his own country's current generation of footballers wanted to win.

"You see Brazil and what it does for them to play for their country - it's something really special," he said. "In Holland, OK it's special, but not as special as with some other countries.

"It has something to do with our culture, we're very down to earth. To be the best you sometimes have to be mean, and I think that's something lacking in our culture."

But as well as that desire, Croatia have developed the knack of winning with style. Just think of Davor Suker, Robert Prosinecki, Zvonimir Boban, Igor Stimac, Niko Kranjcar and Luka Modric.

Or as Chiles puts it: "Most Croatians are very competent."

Euro 2008 beware.

Euro 2008 qualifiers' population and European Championship track record

Russia - 142.5 million - winners in 1960 as USSR
Germany - 82.5 million - winners in 1972, 1980, 1996
Turkey - 74.8 million
France - 61.6 million - winners in 1984 and 2000
Italy - 58.9 million - winners in 1968
Spain - 44.2 million - winners in 1964
Poland - 38.1 million
Romania - 21.4 million
Netherlands - 16.4 million - winners in 1988
Greece - 11.1 million - winners in 2004
Portugal - 10.6 million
Czech Republic - 10.2 million - winners as Czechoslovakia in 1976
Sweden - 9.1 million
Austria - 8.4 million
Switzerland - 7.4 million
Croatia - 4.4 million