World Cup 2022: Tottenham's Ivan Perisic breaks incredible record with goal for Croatia

Ivan Perisic celebrates scoring Croatia's first goal during the Qatar 2022 World Cup round of 16 football match between Japan and Croatia at the Al-Janoub Stadium in Al-Wakrah, south of Doha on December 5, 2022.
(Image credit: Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)

Ivan Perisic made Croatia football history as he equalised against Japan in the last 16 of World Cup 2022.

The Tottenham winger met Dejan Lovren's cross with a fine header 10 minutes into the second half – and, in doing so, wrote his name into the record books.

With his 10th goal in the competition, Perisic surpassed Davor Suker – who inspired Croatia to the semi-finals of France 98, their very first World Cup – as the country's all-time leading scorer at major tournament.

Perisic opened his World Cup account against Cameroon at the 2014 finals in Brazil and has also scored against Mexico, Iceland, England and France – with his strikes against the latter two coming in the semi-finals and final respectively four years ago.

The 33-year-old's crucial goal (in his 120th cap) on Monday afternoon ended an international goal drought of over a year. He's now found the net for Croatia 34 times overall.

Of course, Perisic is synonymous with creativity – so it probably comes as little surprise that he's also provided more assists at major tournaments than any other Croatia player (7).

Tom Hancock

Tom Hancock started freelancing for FourFourTwo in April 2019 and has also written for the Premier League and Opta Analyst, among others. He supports Wycombe Wanderers and has a soft spot for Wealdstone. A self-confessed statto, he has been known to watch football with a spreadsheet (or several) open...