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Sport inCroatia (Croatian:Sport u Hrvatskoj) has significant role inCroatian culture, and many local sports clubs as well as the Croatian national squads enjoy strong followings in the country. The most enduring sport by far in Croatia isfootball, and is played on amateur and professional levels amongst all age groups across the entire country. Several other majorteam sports arehandball,basketball andwater polo, with clubs in all parts of Croatia.Ice hockey is another popular team sport, namely in the Croatian interior. The most popularindividual sports in Croatia aretennis,alpine skiing, andswimming, and to some extenttable tennis andchess. Various amateur sport games are popular in Croatia, notablypicigin.
Franjo Bučar (1866–1946) is widely considered to be the father of modern Croatian sport. He founded theCroatian Sports Association in 1909 within what was then theAustro-Hungarian Empire.[1] Bučar introduced a multitude of mainstream sports in Croatia, such asfootball,alpine skiing,ice skating andice hockey, as well asgymnastics andfencing. TheFranjo Bučar State Award for Sport, the Republic of Croatia's highest award in the development of sport, is named in his honor.
With the exception of the years during the World War TwoIndependent State of Croatia, Croatian club and national teams first represented the Republic of Croatia at the start of the 1990s, with the formation of theCroatian national football team and its first match against theUnited States in 1990.
Since independence, Croatia hosted several world championships inOlympic sports:[2] two World Handball Championships (2003 women's and2009 men's), the2022 World Shotgun Championships (Osijek), and the2025 World Wrestling Championships (Zagreb).
Football is the most popular sport in Croatia, and is governed by theCroatian Football Federation. ThePrva HNL is the top division of the country's football league system, and operates on a system of promotion and relegation with theDruga HNL.
Dinamo Zagreb is the country's most successful football club and the 2019 champion, with 20 total championships, followed byHajduk Split with 6 championships (last one in 2005). The rivalry between these two clubs is known as theEternal Derby in Croatia, with the two clubs combining to win all but one of the 20 championships ever contested in the league's history. The Prva HNL is ranked 17th league in Europe byUEFA, and Dinamo Zagreb is the highest-ranked Croatian club in Europe, occupying the 30th spot.
TheCroatian Cup is the main knock-out tournament in Croatian football, and has also been dominated by Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split. TheCroatian Supercup is contested between the champions of the Prva HNL and the Croatian Cup.
No Croatian club has ever won theUEFA Champions League, howeverHajduk Split, at the time Croatia's premier club, made it to the quarter-finals of the1994–95 league, losing on aggregate to eventual championAjax.
TheCroatia national football team won a bronze medal in the1998 FIFA World Cup and a silver medal in the2018 FIFA World Cup and a bronze medal in the2022 FIFA World Cup.Davor Šuker won theGolden Boot as the top goalscorer in 1998 andLuka Modrić won theGolden Ball as the best player of the tournament in 2018. The national football team has also played in the quarter-finals of the1996 and the2008 European Championships. As of August 2018, the team was ranked 4th in theFIFA World Rankings. Today, Croatia's most popular footballers includeLuka Modrić,Mario Mandžukić,Ivica Olić,Darijo Srna,Ivan Perišić,Ivan Klasnić,Niko Kranjčar,Ivan Rakitić andVedran Ćorluka, as well as foreign-bornJosip Šimunić,Eduardo da Silva andSammir. In August 2012, Modrić was acquired by Spanish giants and 31-timeLa Liga championsReal Madrid for a deal totalling over £33 million, and he made his debut as a substitute in Real's 2–1 victory overCatalan rivalsFC Barcelona.
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Historically, Croatia has been a prolific nation inhandball, both in the success of its club handball, as well as with the achievements of theCroatian national squad.
At the start of the 2nd half of the 20th century,RK Bjelovar dominated Croatian handball, and in the 1970s won fiveYugoslav league championships. In 1972 RK Bjelovar won theEHF Champions League, Europe's greatest handball competition, and reached the final the following year. A smaller city, Bjelovar's reign of successes can be likened to that of the storiedVince Lombardi–eraGreen Bay Packers of theNational Football League, as the town ofGreen Bay, Wisconsin, the smallest NFL market in the United States, brought home five league championships in the 1960s.
Since Croatian independence,RK Zagreb has been the nation's premier handball club. It has won everyCroatian First Handball League championship that has been contested, 28 in all. The club has reached theEHF Champions League finals six times, winning consecutively in 1992 and 1993. In 2008, the club acquired Croatian starIvano Balić, considered the best handballer of all time.[3]
TheCroatia men's national handball team is currently ranked 10th in the world by theInternational Handball Federation. At the1996 and2004 Summer Olympics, Croatia won gold medals in men's handball. The squad also has won the2003 World Men's Handball Championship and came in second at the1995 and2005 world championships, as well as at the2009 World Championship as hosts, losing in the final toFrance. Croatia also came in third at the1994 World Championship and second at the2008 and2010 European championships. Croatia will once host the world handball tournament in2025, alongDenmark andNorway.
TheCroatia national basketball team has won a silver medal at the1992 Olympic basketball tournament, bronze medal at the1994 World Championship and bronze medals atEuroBasket 1993 andEuroBasket 1995.
Croatian basketball clubs wereEuroLeague champions five times:KK Split three times (1989, 1990 and 1991) andKK Cibona in 1985 and 1986. Croatian basketball players such asKrešimir Ćosić,Dino Rađa andToni Kukoč were amongst the first foreign players to succeed in theNational Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States. One of the most notable Croatian basketballers wasDražen Petrović, who died in a car accident in June 1993. He is considered a crucial part of the vanguard to the present-day mass influx of European players into the NBA and he was posthumously enshrined in theNaismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.[4] In 2013, he was voted the best European Basketball player in history, by players at the2013 FIBA EuroBasket.[5]
TheCroatia national water polo team won gold medals in the2007 and2017 World Championships, and bronze medals in the2009 and2011 World Championships.
The team also won gold at the2012 and silver at the1996 and2016 Summer Olympics, as well as gold at the2010 and silvers in the1999 and2003 European Championships.
Croatian water polo clubs were 13 timesLEN Champions League champions.HAVK Mladost fromZagreb is a seven time European champion (1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1990, 1991 and 1996) and was awarded the titleBest Club of the 20th Century by theLEN.VK Jug fromDubrovnik andVK Jadran fromSplit are both three time European champions, whilePOŠK, also from Split, is a European champion from 1999.
Introduced at the start of the 20th century,ice hockey became one of Croatia's first organized and federated sports, with Franjo Bučar's founding of theAssociation for Skating and Ice Hockey, the precursor to the modernCroatian Ice Hockey Federation. From the late 1930s until Croatia's independence, Croatian ice hockey clubs competed in theYugoslav Hockey League, with Croatia's most successful clubKHL Medveščak Zagreb winning the championship three consecutive times from 1988 to 1990.
Ice hockey is particularly popular in the interior regions of Croatia'sPannonia,Slavonia,Zagreb andZagorje, where winters are as cold as in more prolific hockey nations such asSlovakia and theCzech Republic. Today, KHL Medveščak competes in the RussianKontinental Hockey League orKHL, the top-tier Russian tournament and the 2nd highest-ranking ice hockey league in the world.[6] Before joining KHL, Medveščak played in the AustrianEBEL, Medveščak debuted in EBEL in the 2009 season and it has qualified for the playoffs every year.
Medveščak joined theKontinental Hockey League in the2013–14 season.
Croatia women's national volleyball team won silver medals three times atEuropean Volleyball Championship in1995,1997 and1999.
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Janica Kostelić is the most successful femalealpine ski racer in the history of theWinter Olympic Games. She is the only woman to win four gold medals in alpine skiing at theWinter Olympics Alpine skiing events (in2002 and2006), and the only woman to win three alpine skiing gold medals in one Olympics (2002). She also won two silver medals in2006. Janica was theWorld Cup overall champion in2001,2003, and2006. On February 5, 2006, Janica became only the second female skier to win all five disciplines in one season. She also holds the record for the highest number of points in one World Cup season. In 2006 she wonLaureus World Sports Award for Sportswoman of the Year. Her elder brotherIvica Kostelić was the2003 World Champion in slalom and theMen's Overall Champion at the2011 Alpine Skiing World Cup, and as of 14 February 2014 is a four-time Winter Olympic silver medalist himself.Zrinka Ljutić won the slalom title in the2025 World Cup.[8]
Blanka Vlašić is the best-known Croatiantrack and field athlete; she specialises in thehigh jump. She is2007 and2009 World Champion. Blanka is also2008 World Indoor Champion,2008 Olympic silver medalist and2016 Olympic bronze medalist. Her personal best is 2.08 m (6 ft 9.89 in) (which is only 1 cm less than the world record) set in Zagreb on August 31, 2009.
Goran Ivanišević became the first ever wildcard to winWimbledon when he won his first and onlyGrand Slam title in2001.[9] He was previously a three time runner-up at the event. Croatia also wonDavis Cup on two occasions in2005 and2018. Other Grand Slam champions from Croatia include2014 US Open championMarin Čilić and1997 French Open championIva Majoli.
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Croatian athletes have had considerable success in individual sports as well, where they represented Croatia in international competitions at the highest level. These sports include:
National organizations and leagues exist in Croatia for most popular sports. Some of these include:
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Some of Croatia's more successful national teams include:
Croatia has participated in the following Summer Olympic Games to date:
Croatia has participated in the following Winter Olympic Games to date:
Croatia has hosted many international sporting events. Until 1992 Croatia hosted the events as a part ofYugoslavia.
Zagreb (Sljeme) has organized many FIS races apart from the World Cup races held every year from 2005.[10] The first ever FIS alpine ski race was held in 1995 and included 94 racers from 7 different countries.[11]
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