Ivan Perisic: The fourth wheel who's becoming Croatia’s central cog

Joe Callaghan, Moscow

Leonardo Perisic bore down on goal and Croatian throats that had been roared raw opened again and beckoned him forward.

He finished into an empty net and cheers rolled around the Luzhniki Stadium again. Next it was Manuela’s turn.

The same routine played out and a third member of the Perisic clan had now scored at the same end of the grand old venue on this grand night for Croatian football.

Too young to realise the enormous gravity of what their father had achieved on the same surface in the hours preceding their jaunt, the Perisic kids were just happy to be kicking around a ball half their size in front of a captive audience. But those in the stands knew.

And when Perisic Sr finally came to retrieve his young children, he was saluted and serenaded all over again.

Wednesday had already turned to Thursday in Moscow but Croatians very young and old have got used to late nights in Russia this past month.

Their national team have stretched them into deep and dark moments before ultimately and repeatedly delivering on their promise to go one better than the boys of ’98.

On Wednesday night, Perisic had been the one who had stretched like no other. His relentless running had rocked and rolled England’s defenders, wing backs, and would-be midfielders when the game mattered most — in the 45 minutes after half-time and in the 30 of extra-time that followed.

Perisic scored the equaliser and then set up Mario Mandzukic’s winner and took home one of the few man-of-the-match awards at this World Cup with which you simply couldn’t argue.

This was the night Croatia’s golden generation had promised for so long. That Perisic was the central figure in delivering it was fitting for a player who too often has played something of fourth wheel to the other pillars of the generation — Luka Modric, Ivan Rakitic, and Mandzukic.

Perisic has been just as fundamental a part of this team as the other trio but can get dropped into supporting cast territory when people skim the surface of Zlatko Dalic’s team.

Modric, Rakitic, and Mandzukic are thrust forward not just because of exploits in red and white but by being staples of this generation of inescapable interest in the Champions League. With Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Bayern Munich/Atletico Madrid/Juventus, respectively, the trio are staples of the Tuesday and Wednesday night limelight.

Perisic, meanwhile, has operated more often in the half-light, on the inner fringes of European superclub football.

He was a central cog in Borussia Dortmund’s first Bundesliga title in a decade in 2011 but fell out with Jurgen Klopp in ugly fashion the following year. Marco Reus had returned to the club and Perisic saw his playing time erode.

From an early age, whether as a youth with Hajduk Split or Sochaux in France, the son of a chicken farmer from the rural coastline of Croatia has been a player desperate to play, one for whom a watching brief will never suffice.

“When I sit on the bench,” Perisic said earlier in his career, “I’m dying.”

He left Klopp and Dortmund behind and excelled first with Wolfsburg and for the past three years with Inter Milan, but has played just 14 times in continental competition since, all in the Europa League.

It seems something of a waste that he hasn’t played in the Champions League for fully six years because there is something about the big occasion that sparks even greater output from a remarkably consistent performer.

Perisic has scored in six different games across the past three major championships he has gone to. His perfectly timed run and poke past Jordan Pickford was the fourth World Cup goal of his career and his 20th for his country, more than Modric or Rakitic, in just 72 international games.

He should arguably have had a second or third against England as Gareth Southgate’s side wobbled on Wednesday night.

Perisic was the one who made them wobble. His pace unnerved them but so too did his power. He is that rare form of winger who can rove into the middle and do a damn good impression of a target man like Mandzukic when the striker forages out wide. It’s a switch that makes Croatia such a constant threat.

“Normally you look at wingers and they are just fast and creative,” purred Jose Mourinho after the semi-final.

“Perisic is the kind of winger that is different to the others. He is also physical, very physical. Fantastic in the air.”

The Manchester United manager was desperate to bring Perisic to Old Trafford last summer and is reportedly primed to pick up that pursuit again when the curtain comes down on the World Cup tomorrow.

Club matters can wait. Perisic, who has spoken vividly of watching on as Croatia’s class of 1998 saw their historic run come to an end at the hands of France in the semi-finals, is adamant that Croatia can complete the improbable dream tomorrow.

With legs wearied by a full 90 minutes of extra-time over the past three games, Perisic’s running game will be essential to any effort to pull it off. Benjamin Pavard and Lucas Hernandez are likely in for an afternoon that will see plenty of time spent on the turn or chasing back to their own goal.

“Our dream is so close now,” said Perisic in the early hours of Thursday morning, his children still close by with his No4 across the backs of their shirts.

“This is something indescribable. Little Croatia through to the World Cup Final. No one believed before the World Cup that we could go this far, but we believed. We have one more game left, and we have never been more motivated.”