Croatia fans celebrate taking the lead against Brazil in the opening match of the 2014 World Cup Credit: Doug Brown, Cleveland Scene

Croatia was knocked out of the World Cup yesterday, but it wasn’t due to lack of support from the massive Croatian community in towns like Eastlake and Willoughby. Scene joined Croatia fans for both the World Cup’s opening match on June 12 and their third and final game on June 23.

Here’s Sam Allard’s piece from when we visited High Point Restaurant & Bar for their opening match against heavily favored Brazil, the tournament’s host country (pictures 1-8 in the slideshow below). On Monday, I visited the American-Croatian Lodge, watching the must-win game projected on a large blow-up screen in the pavilion with a packed crowd of Croatian-American soccer fans and families (pictures 9-19).

Perhaps Scene‘s presence brought a bit of bad luck: the two games we watched with them, the Croatian squad lost to Brazil and Mexico, both by a score of 3-1. The game we didn’t attend, the second match against Cameroon, Croatia won 4-0. Because they didn’t beat Mexico yesterday, Croatia is officially out of the World Cup.

Check out our photos here:


This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2014.

Doug Brown is a staff writer at Scene with a passion for public records laws and investigative reporting. A native of Ann Arbor, Mich., he has an M.A. in journalism from the Kent State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a B.A. in political science from Hiram College. Prior to joining Scene, Doug was a contributing writer for Deadspin.com, reporting behind-the-scenes stories about college sports through public records and developing sources. Doug's work as an enterprise reporter for the Daily Kent Stater was recognized by the Cleveland Press Club (2013 Ohio Excellence in Journalism Awards), Society of Professional Journalists (regional and national Mark of Excellence Awards), and the Associated Collegiate Press. He spent the summer of 2012 working for the Metro desk of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and spent previous summers working for Outside Bozeman Magazine and Crain's Detroit Business. His website is dougbrown8.com.

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