Interesting times in Zagreb this week (updated).

Well, there have been police all over lower town for the last three days, and today they were in full riot gear (note, this is a picture from yesterday and the MUP already had the land rovers with riot cages over the window out). It's 7pm on a warm fall evening and the streets are pretty much empty. This can mean only one thing; there is a big Soccer game tonight. This is an international game, Croatia vs. England, hence all the security. The English are renown for their fans (and not in a good way) but I have confidence that things won't get too out of hand. Croatian fans (as I mentioned before) have a penchant for using road flairs and the Croatian police are not to shy about using force on anyone that gets out of line (its just that throwing a lighted road flair on the field isn't considered out of line around here). Oh, and the city has been crawling with Brits this week, so I am looking forward to this game being over and being mistaken for a local again.

Update: Well, that didn't take long. The game just ended and there are people on the street singing. Croatia won 2:0. England really did not play well until the last 10 minutes. I'm glad Croatia won (even though I am an Anglo-phile at heart) because it means the city will be in a good mood for the next few days. Oh, and no road flairs on the pitch today. In fact it was no where near as rough as the Dinamo-Hajduk game.

Update 2: Ok, now maybe I'm not so happy Croatia won. I have a feeling it is going to be a long and noisy night here. After the Dinamo-Hajduke tie, every just went home quietly. Not tonight.