THE CROATIAN water polo team are tipped to win gold next week, and in the process they may turn the moustache into a national emblem. On an emotional day in the Beijing Natatorium, the Croats beat Serbia in the water and afterwards deflected from the sad and bitter history between the nations by celebrating their team moustache policy, their homage to coach and national hero Ratko Rudic.

Sooner or later, all wars are reduced to scraps in the swimming pool. Nowadays, the lingering national rivalry between the English and the Germans plays itself out in the eternal race for the sun beds on the holiday along the Costa Brava. And water polo can claim one of the most famous diplomatic sporting breakdowns of the last century: the Blood In The Water match between Hungary and the USSR.

Yesterday Beijingers paused in the bright sunshine to listen to the mysterious, husky chanting of the Croatians on the streets all around the Yingdong Natatorium after their win against their sometime compatriots and recent oppressors from Serbia.

For the Croats, patriotism and sport have always been second nature and through the last minutes, with the match safe at 11-8, the Croats began dancing in the bleachers and chanting the name of Rudic. It may not have been the dirtiest match in water polo but it was a feisty affair above the water and typically devious underneath.

Three Croatians were ejected from the match for misconduct and assistant coach Peric Bukic was given a red card for harassing the referees. Those dismissals just made the win over the 2008 world league champions all the more enjoyable.

"The fans were singing that chant in the European football championships this summer. It is all about pride," said player Maro Jokovic afterwards, standing at 6ft 8ins in a pair of flip-flops and the extraordinary red-and-white-chequered patriotic swimming togs the Croats favour.

"I am the youngest on the senior team but I played three times against Serbia - here, in Melbourne and at a league tournament. This will be big back home. For sure. These games are high-risk games because, you know, what happened in the past. And it is still fresh."

Jokovic was born in 1987, just a child when the doomed Yugoslavia finally disintegrated. And he was still a child during the worst days of conflict around his home city of Dubrovnik.

But while the fans praised the heavens and the players took turns to congratulate the coach, they adhered to an implicit agreement between the countries that national passions would not destroy the match.

"It was a hard game," Jokovic said, "because Serbia are a very strong team, but both teams wanted to play clean. We didn't want to think about what has happened between our two countries. We talk a little when we meet. We say hello. It is quite civil."

As Zdeslav Vrdoljak, the team captain and veteran, said: "Ratko gave us the message that to beat Serbia is really important for us. Nothing like 10 years ago, but still a big thing."

Life goes on. In any event, overcoming the Serbs is just one part of the Croatian grand plan to win the gold medal here. They are the form team and have the advantage of having Rudic, a folk hero across the Baltic nations, as their mentor.

Rudic is the most successful water polo coach in history and was richly decorated as a Yugoslav player, winning Olympic gold in 1968 and a silver medal in 1980.

He guided the Croats to gold in Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988.

He was born in Belgrade and during the happier, early days of independence, he briefly managed Serbia.

Through the 1990s, Rudic was a wanderer. He was recruited by Italy and, predictably, coached them to gold in the 1992 games.

Eight years later, in a tense quarter-final match, he infamously lost his composure at the poolside in Sydney and had to be restrained by police from attacking the match referees. He was banned from the sport for a year and, after transforming the state of the sport in the USA, he made a triumphant return to the homeland.

Croatia beat Serbia last year in the semi-final of the World Championships in Melbourne, the very city where the Hungarians and the Russians traded more punches than throws during the 1956 games. Rudic was 10 then and through the fractured decades in his homeland, he managed to devote himself to his sport.

After this latest notch in his belt, his white shirt was drenched and he stroked that famous moustache, clearly pleased that the younger generation of Croat and Serb athletes can get through a tough match relatively unscathed by the darker points of their shared history.

Vrdoljak, the senior man, is the undoubted winner in terms of bushiness and other qualities. In the pool yesterday, he sported a lady-tickler unrivalled on television since the heyday of Burt Reynolds. As the Croatians advance, it seems a fair bet the travelling fans will start copying their idols.

"As long as we are fighting for a medal, we will not be shaving it," vowed Jokovic.