Davor Suker

Davor Suker had a brilliant club career. He won La Liga and the Champions League with Real Madrid and was consistently one of La Liga’s top scorers over a period of about seven years. Maybe the only blip on his record was a miss in the penalty shoot-out of the Uefa Cup Final in 2000 for Arsenal against Galatasaray.

But it is Suker’s international record that he is most revered for. Suker first came to my attention during Euro 96. How could anyone forget his performance against Euro 92 winners Denmark with the brilliant Peter Schmeichel in goal. Suker scored the first with a penalty, set up the second for Boban and then on the break scored a brilliant lob over Schmeichel (possibly the goal of the tournament). 

Fast forward two years and Suker was one of the standout players of the 98 World Cup along with Zidane and Ronaldo. And it is even more remarkable as he did it in a team full of great players. Robert Prosinecki, Zvonimir Boban, Igor Tudor, Dario Simic, Mario Stanic, Slavin Bilic, Aljosa Asanovic, Robert Jarni and erm, Silvio Maric.

This was Croatia’s first World Cup tournament and didn’t they do well. You can’t argue with a third place finish for your first World Cup. Spearheaded by the magnificent Suker, Croatia beat the likes of Japan, Jamaica, Romania, Germany and Holland. Croatia only lost to eventual champions France by one goal. Suker was the star of the show, winning the Golden Boot with 6 goals in 7 games. He finished his career with 46 international goals in 71 games for Yugoslavia and Croatia. Just to put that into perspective, Croatia’s current second top goal record scorers (Srna and Eduardo) haven’t even scored half the goals that Suker did!

Picture from http://www.footballteamplayers.com/davor-suker-biography.html