CROATIAN BASKETBALL IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY - WHERE HAS NATIONAL IDENTITY DISAPPEARED?

Sports sociologists claim that general societal changes are also deeply connected with the world of sport. This claim can also be applied in the field of Croatian basketball. States that have undergone significant socio-political changes, such as Croatia, are fertile ground for research of national identity and its connection with sports. This article will deal with what has changed in Croatian sport and society since Croatian basketball's greatest success - a silver medal at the Olympic games in Barcelona - with an accent on the significance of national identity. Through a qualitative discourse and content analysis of Croatian daily newspapers (Sportske novosti, Jutarnji list, Vecernji list), we shall attempt to explain how two large sporting events (the 1992 Olympic Games and the Euro Basket 2017) in which the Croatian national basketball team competed affected the structure of national identity in different ways. Taking into account the period of 25 years that marked the transition from a post-socialist society into a "crony capitalist" society, we suppose that changes have also taken place regarding the perception of the role of sport in creating national identity. Players in the 1990s who refused to play for the national team would be labeled traitors to the nation. We examine what is happening a quarter of a century later - do refusal to play for the national team, victory, and defeat carry the same weight? How connected is the relationship between basketball and Croatian society with media constructions versus real events in society as a whole? Based on a discourse analysis and a qualitative content analysis, we shall examine this case on three levels: media discourse, political discourse, and the discourse of the key players themselves - top athletes.