A cannonade of firecrackers, fireworks, guns and sirens in
Croatian cities marked the victory of the young football nation over giants
Germany in the top Euro 2008 Group B match in Klagenfurt Thursday.
Thousands of people were already in Zagreb streets, watching the match on a
huge video-beam in the central Bana Jelacica Square, as many more poured out to
celebrate, ceaselessly honking from cars adorned in the chequered red-and-white
Croatia flags.
It was the same in Split, Zadar, Slavonski Brod, Sibenik, Osijek and virtually
every city and town, local reports said. No incidents or injuries were
immediately reported.
The football madness in Croatia is now, with the team's almost certain passage
to the knockout stage, likely to go up by another notch, though it already
matched the frenzy surrounding the country9s advance to the 1998 World Cup semi
final.
Croatia, which won independence from Yugoslavia in 1992, then
also beat Germany, 3-0 that time, en route to the eventual third place and its
largest football triumph to date, dpa
reported.