Iconic Croatian striker Mario Mandzukic, who scored the winning goal against England in the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2018, has retired from the game, three years after playing his last international.
The 35-year-old announced his decision in a post on Instagram, which included a photo of a pair of boots, on Friday night.
“While you put on these boots for the first time, you can’t even imagine what you will get to experience in football,” he wrote in a message in English addressed to his young self, “Dear little Mario”, and signed “Your big Mario”.
“You’ll recognize the moment to retire, to put these boots in a cabinet and you’ll have no regrets.”
Mandzukic appeared 89 times for Croatia scoring 33 goals, he also played Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, and Qatari club Al Duhail, and appeared 11 times this year for AC Milan. Plagued by injury he was used mostly as a substitute and did not score a goal.
He won the Croatian league three times with Dinamo Zagreb, the Bundesliga, twice, and the Champions League at Bayern, and Serie A four times at Juventus.
Croatian sports stars Miralem Pjanic, tennis player Marin Cilic and NBA small forward Bojan Bogdanovic all joined the on-line chorus of praise as did Blaise Matuidi, an opponent in the 2018 World Cup final and team-mate at Juventus.
Croatian coach Zlatko Dalic thanked Mandzukic in a statement calling him “a fighter on whom the team could always rely, a player for big games and the toughest challenges”.