At the European Championships in 1998, 2000 and 2002 finished in 8th, 6th and 16th place. Croatia in 2000 hosted the European Championship, they had high expectations from this tournament but they weren't fulfilled. After the defeat from Slovenia in the match for fifth place Croatia took only 6th place and failed to qualify for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. The national team is also lost its ability to defend the gold from Atlanta in Sydney. First Červar era (2002–2010) Once the team reached bottom with their results, being ranked last or in 16th place at the 2002 European Championship, in March 2002 the Federation entrusted Lino Červar and with him the team that suffered a seven-year drought medal in two years was created into the world champions and Olympic winners. In the period between these two gold medals Croatia is still ranked 4th place at the European Championships in 2004 in Slovenia. With Červar in charge Croatia would be at the top of the handball world. With the arrival of Lino Červar and a maturing exceptionally talented new generation including a young Ivano Balić, the revival of the national team culminated at the 2003 World Championship. The start of the competition was disastrous. Croatia lost in their first match to Argentina who was at the time a punching for serious national teams in official competitions. Although the first half led with 5 goals, but 14 minutes before the end of the match conceded 6 goals. At the end of the match, Croatian handball players fired five successive attacks, and Mirza Džomba 20 seconds before the end missed the equalizer. How Croatian players badly played that match was proven by the fact they missed 6 penalty shots. During halftime of the second match against another underdog Saudi Arabia Croatia was losing with 2 differences and was playing desperately. Yet the team found strength to win this match. The turning point was marvelous – the group's dramatic victories in the end against giants Russia, France and Hungary securing first place to the second part where the Croats were convincing against Egypt and Denmark. In semi-finals the match went into overtime (4 × 5 minutes) defeating the Spaniards 39:37 (26: 26/31: 31) and in the grand final they outscored Germany 34:31 and won their first title of world champions and wrote surely one of the most beautiful story's in the history