There are always idiots, everywhere, not just here. I hate racists, and I hate people who throw torches on the field. I don't mind seeing them lit up, just for better atmosphere, but having them being thrown on the players is just stupid and unnecessary. There was this guy standing a few rows down from where I was, he would raise his right hand everytime the North stand would say "Hrvatska!". He's obviously an ignorant and an idiot, but it can't be helped. There will always be people like him. They are a minority, though.
The rest of us Croatians don't take these racist accusations seriously. While we were entering the stadium, some guy said "Oh, would you all just stop being racist!" and everyone laughed, including me. It's just stupid to accuse a nation of racism when there's only a group of people making racist gestures. And seriously, no one can do anything to stop this because they can't be thrown out/banned from the stadium for raising their right hand. It's sad how a group of idiots can be a motive for UEFA to threaten us with expulsion. I mean, EXPULSION from an international competition because a few idiots didn't have a very good education. It's not fair.
Also, after the game, the Croatian police officers and Sokol Marić employees who were frisking the fans at the entrance, have now turned out to be bullies because, apparently, some English fans got beat up. As I've read, some English fans wanted to get into the stadium without a ticket, and the security had to resort to violence. In that mess, some English fans who had a ticket also got hit, and now, because this happened with a few people, the Croatian have turned out to be a violent nation. All this is supposed to make us lose the Euro hosting. I don't know why people generalize things so much. Even if some English people did get hit, I'm sure the security didn't assault them for no reason. But the English have turned out to be saints harassed for no apparent reason, and we have violent maniacs securing football games.
Also, the people who are thought to be racist are on the North stand. The South is for away fans, the rest is for home fans, with the West being most expensive and the North being the cheapest. This is obviously the reason why 99% of idiots are on the North stand, and why the camera likes showing that stand. When you watch it on the TV, it's like the whole stadium is on fire, but it's really just the North stand and a bit of East, where I was. The people on my stand were just singing "U boj u boj, za narod svoj!", being ordinary fans with no malice. There's an idiot here and there, but that's it. The North is critical, because the people that do most of the singing and chanting and flag-waving are there, and it's the stand that is zoomed in on the most. Then people see it on TV and think we're racist, violent and ignorant. But when you're actually in the stadium, you see that the trouble makers are lets say a hundred people. The capacity in Maksimir is 38 000, I think. So... lets say there were 30 000 fans. Four and a half English, leaving us with a figure of 25 - 25.5 thousand Croatian fans. So, a hundred or two out of 25 thousand is nothing, really. What people don't want to understand is that these people can't be banned. They have a right to buy a ticket and attend, regardless of what they're singing. Sadly enough, these people are professional trouble makers, you can tell when they pass by you on the street. When I was going to the game, there were English fans around, and no one attacked them, no one insulted them, nothing. They got a few instructions from other citizens on how to get to the stadium. When I was really close to Maksimir, there was a small group of Croatian fans walking in front of me, and a few English fans coming the opposite way. When they came close to eachother, they said hello and shook hands. They didn't know each other because I heard the conversation among my countrymen afterwards, being so close to them. They didn't understand what the English said to them, but they thought it was cool they met. That's what the Cro fans are like. It's sad that the idiots are the group people are paying attention to.
There was also a big English flag somewhere, I think it was the main square. It had three words, two of them being Passion and Belief, I'm sure you saw the pics. They spread that flag and people were signing it. That was on the main square, no one made a problem out of it. But that's forgotten because a few people in Zagreb are racist.
