Croatian supporters are already looking toward North America for the 2026 World Cup, and they are doing it with the memory of two podium finishes still fresh. Croatia took second place in 2018 and third in 2022, a run that has turned a country of barely four million people into one of international football’s most stubbornly confident followings.
That confidence is showing up in the people planning the trip. Marin Gabela, 29, from Split said Croatia’s fans have learned to live with the underdog label and reject it at the same time, calling the country small but full of heart and saying the team is never fearful of anyone. The appeal is not just nostalgia for past tournaments. Croatia’s group games in Dallas, Toronto and Philadelphia give supporters three fixed targets, and for many that means booking around a tournament they already believe can become another deep run.
The official supporters’ club, Uvijek Vjerni, or Always Faithful, has become the clearest measure of how broad that belief is. By the last World Cup in Qatar, it had grown to around 25,000 members and had built a 200m national flag for a parade through Doha, the kind of scene that made Croatia hard to miss even before kickoff. The club’s name fits a fan culture that reaches from ultras to beer in Zagreb, bevanda in Split and grandmother fans cheering from home, all of it tied to the same expectation that Croatia can keep matching much larger countries on the biggest stage.
But there is a limit to how widely that travel dream can be shared. Vigo Mavrovic said most Croatians who make it to the World Cup will be wealthy because the tournament is so expensive, even as he said the support back home remains strong. He described the fans as distinctive, loud and proud, and said he will watch matches with friends at the pub or at home with Maraska Pelinkovac until early in the morning. That split between those who can afford to go and those who will follow from afar may be the most revealing part of Croatia’s World Cup story: the devotion is nationwide, but the journey to North America will not be equally shared.
Even so, the belief is not built on wishful thinking. Ante Kvartuc said Croatia is a strong, religious, Catholic country that takes care of its own, and that same instinct has carried the team through repeated shocks against football’s heavyweights. The unanswered question now is whether the 2026 World Cup will give Croatia one more run that justifies the confidence, or whether the fans who have turned faith into identity will be asking for another miracle in Dallas, Toronto and Philadelphia.
