Luka Modric exited football’s biggest stage with a bronze medal after captaining Croatia to victory over Morocco in the World Cup third-place play-off.
The Real Madrid midfielder, 37, has yet to call time on his international career but this was likely to be his last World Cup appearance as the 2018 runners-up took third spot in Qatar following a 2-1 win at Khalifa International Stadium.
If Modric is about to bow out, a rising star of Croatian football opened the scoring with the masked Josko Gvardiol heading in early on, only for Achraf Dari to level less than two minutes later for a Morocco side still fatigued following their semi-final loss to France.
A fine Mislav Orsic effort had Croatia, well beaten by Argentina in the last four, ahead at the break and they held that lead throughout a stop-start second half.