They come from a small nation on the edge of Europe, predominantly Catholic, strongly nationalist and fiercely proud of a football team whose uncompromising approach has humbled some of the great powers of world football. And they like their beer.
Yes, it was hard to tell the Croats from the locals when Dublin's small Croatian community gathered to watch the World Cup semi-final in Becky Morgan's pub in Grand Canal Street last night. Not that they were all Croats.
Among the young electronics graduates who have come from Zagreb and Split to feed the Celtic Tiger was the country's honorary consul in Ireland - celebrity barrister Gerry Danaher. And some of the older Croats were more Irish than the Irish themselves. Like Drago Radic, whose ancestry is so illustrious that (according to Dana her) his family name in Croatia could be Collins and de Valera put together. About the same time that Fianna Fail entered the Dail with revolvers in their pockets, Drago's grandfather and great-granduncle were murdered by Serbs in the precincts of the national parliament.
Forced into exile in 1955, Drago stopped off in Ireland en route to the US, but he was still here last night, a successful businessman proud of both his homes. "We were still a very raw republic - not taken seriously," he says of Ireland in the 1950s. "Croatia has the same problems now".
The Ireland-Croatia Friendship Society was formally represented in the pub, but the friendship was cemented in the person of Gordana Quigley, whose Croatian-Irish first baby is already overdue. And when the baby wasn't born during the opening minute of the second half last night, it can probably wait a while longer.
After a first half as featureless as the Croatian jersey is chequered, the fans exploded within seconds of the restart when Suker put the motherland a goal up, only to see France equalise before they'd resumed their seats.
Thuram's second goal saw spirits sink further, and "Sudac, gdje su ti oci!" was a typical comment at the television as the game wore on. But inquiries about the qualities of the referee's eyesight were forgotten when he saw more than there was in Blanc's 74th minute hand-off of Bilic, and reduced France to 10 men.
They willed their team to find the equaliser, but when it didn't come, there was only pride that they had mixed it for so long with the world's best. One of the younger breed, Velibor Korolija, summed it up: "The victory over Germany will never be forgotten".