Igor Tudor - International Career

International Career

Tudor played for the Croatian national football team between 1997 to 2006. He also won several international caps for the Croatian under-17, under-19 and under-21 national teams between 1993 and 2000.

He made his debut in Croatia's final match of the 1998 World Cup qualifying, a 1-1 draw at Ukraine on 15 November 1997, coming on as a substitute for Aljoša Asanović in the 89th minute. He was subsequently also part of the Croatian squad that won the bronze medal at the 1998 World Cup finals in France. At the tournament, he made three appearances as a substitute in the closing stages of Croatia's games against Japan, Romania and the Netherlands.

After the 1998 World Cup, he made 4 appearances in the Croatian national team's unsuccessful qualifying campaign for Euro 2000, being in the starting line-up on all 4 occasions. He also appeared in 6 matches during Croatia's qualifying campaign for the 2002 World Cup, but missed the final tournament in South Korea and Japan due to an injury.

He returned to the national team during the qualifying stages for Euro 2004, appearing in seven qualifying matches. At the finals in Portugal, he appeared in two of Croatia's three group matches. In his first appearance at the tournament, a 2-2 draw against France, he scored an own goal to put the French side 1-0 up midway through the first half. His second appearance at the tournament came in Croatia's final group match against England, where he scored Croatia's second goal to keep their hopes alive after they found themselves 3-1 down in the second half. However, Frank Lampard soon netted England's 4th goal and Croatia were knocked out of the tournament in the group stage.

Tudor was also included in Croatia's 23-man squad for the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany, having appeared in 8 qualifying matches for the tournament, also scoring two goals. He recorded his first goal of the qualifying when he scored Croatia's final goal in their 3-0 win at home to Malta on 30 March 2005. His second goal of the competition came in Croatia's 3-1 win at Bulgaria on 4 June 2005, when he put Croatia 2-0 up just over half an hour from time. At the 2006 World Cup finals, he started all of Croatia's three group matches and played the full 90 minutes in two of them. However, Croatia were eliminated from the tournament after a 2-2 draw against Australia in their final group match, with Tudor receiving his second yellow card of the tournament for complaining about the penalty kick from which Australia scored a 1-1 equaliser. He made no further appearances for the national team following the tournament.