Igor Stimac, a 54-year-old Croatian man usually full of laughter and love, begins to cry as his memories grip him in a world darkened again by a devastating war. The fleeting tears of the former footballer fall for Ukraine and its people. They have suffered in a way that reminds Stimac of everything his own country endured during the terrible Balkans conflict that surrounded its independence from Yugoslavia almost 30 years ago. It was a time when football gained a rare real-life significance as, out of bloodshed and carnage, Croatia’s defiant, gifted and fiercely intelligent players lifted their young nation by lighting up Euro 96 and then leading France in the semi-finals of the 1998 World Cup in Paris. Croatia’s first international match in the modern era had occurred less than eight years before, in October 1990. Stimac played 53 times for Croatia before becoming their manager while Slaven Bilic, his centre-back partner, won 44 caps and managed the national team from 2006 to 2012. They both believe Croatia could have become European and world champions despite their country having just gained freedom. They were driven by a deeper purpose than ordinary ambition. “We were not just playing for ourselves or even Croatia,” the 53-year-old Bilic says. “We were playing for the people who died.” Stimac and Bilic, alongside their friends and teammates Zvonimir Boban, Davor Suker and Robert Prosinecki, have contributed to a riveting and moving documentary made by Louis Myles about this era of Croatian football. “I was very emotional,” Stimac says of his involvement in the film. “I didn’t feel good going back to that time because, whenever anyone brings me back to those days, it’s suffering again.”