By halftime of today’s semifinals, England led the game and even commanded it. It played with speed and smothered the midfield. Every corner kick or free kick it launched seemed a clever scheme, designed to induce Croatian panic. And there was every reason to believe that, after two consecutive games that extended to penalty kicks, Croatia was bereft of the energy that could fuel a comeback. Therefore, we need to bow down before Croatia’s slightly ragged victory.

There are nearly four times more undocumented immigrants in the United States than the total population of Croatia. If metropolitan Philadelphia decided to secede and start its own nation, it would have a far bigger population pool to draw from than the Croats. The World Cup is historically a cartel—owned by a small handful of populous industrial nations—that Croatia stands on the brink of cracking.

Soccer, however, is at the core of its national narrative. It can be argued that the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, which culminated in the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the birth of independent Croatia, began at a soccer match. It took place in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, in the spring of 1990. Thugs from the Serb club Red Star Belgrade rushed from their section of the stadium toward Croatian fans chanting, “Zagreb is Serbian.” A full-fledged riot ensued, with stabbings, shootings, and dozens of grave injuries. These casualties came in the shadow of Croatia’s first genuine elections in 50 years—and the riots helped propel Croatian separatists to victory. In other words, that game helped set in motion a chain of events that culminated in today’s game.

One of the interesting themes of this tournament is how the Balkan Wars continue to ripple through time. Switzerland was a team filled with refugees from the region, Kosovars who celebrated their goals with nationalist gestures that earned them an official reprimand from FIFA.

Luka Modric, the Tolkien-esque wizard at the core of the Croatian midfield, was himself a refugee. Serbian militia burned down his family’s home, and murdered his grandfather and six of his relatives. His family was consigned to live in a hotel, where he played soccer in the parking lot. Or take Mario Mandžukić, who scored today’s winning goal. As a child, he fled to Germany to wait out the war.

There’s no reason to ascribe today’s victory to this experience. (Uruguay, another tiny country, manages to constantly succeed without a sense of historic mission or any need for national redemption.) But as a neutral, I find myself savoring Croatia’s unlikely, tenuous march through the tournament—how its success is like the story of a nation that managed to barely survive. Long before England managed to escape the curse of high expectations, these were a bunch of kids, fleeing grenades, without much reason to imagine their own success. That they have earned a place in the World Cup finals, despite their size and recent past, has the makings of one of the greatest stories in the history of the game.