Croatia U19

Independence changed everything for Croatian football, and the under-19 side is one of the clearer proofs of it. Once Croatia joined UEFA in June 1993, its youngest representative side needed fixtures of its own rather than borrowed history from Yugoslav football, and it found its first opponent in Malta that November, losing 0-4.

The team has never settled on one ground. Qualifying and friendly matches have been shared out between Stadion Varteks in Varaždin, Stadion Branko Čavlović-Čavlek in Karlovac, the smaller Rudeš and Lučko venues in Zagreb, and Stadion Rujevica in Rijeka. A national football centre under construction in Velika Gorica is meant to give the youth sides a permanent base by 2027.

Croatia line up in a white-and-red chequerboard shirt at home, with a dark blue change kit carrying the same pattern.

Third place is as high as the side has climbed at a European finals. The first came in 1998, when the tournament was still played at under-18 level and Portugal were beaten on penalties in the play-off. The second, in 2010, ended with a 2-1 semi-final loss to France.

In 2026 Croatia reached the last four again. Serbia were beaten 3-0 in the group and Italy held to a draw, before a loss to Ukraine; Spain then ended the run 0-3 in the semi-final. Two campaigns went the other way entirely. In 2000, and again in 2016, the side left the group stage without a win — the later exit came after defeats to the Netherlands, France and England in turn.

Several of the players who wore the shirt at this level went on to establish themselves in Croatia's senior team — Luka Modrić, Ivan Perišić, Mateo Kovačić and Joško Gvardiol among them — and matches against Serbia's under-19s, billed in the press as a Balkan derby, still draw more attention than the fixture list would otherwise suggest.

The final itself has never come into view.