Croatia beat Argentina in Nizhny Novgorod on Thursday evening in a 3-0 routing, securing a spot in the World Cup knockout stage for the first time since 1998.

Ante Rebic, Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic scored the goals for Croatia, all in the second half, putting Argentina at risk of an early World Cup exit.

Croatia took the lead in the 53rd minute, when Ante Rebic took advantage of a mistake made by the Argentina goalkeeper Willy Caballero. In the 80th minute Real Madrid’s Luka Modric slid in a superb long range shot from outside the box for 2-0, and Barcelona’s Ivan Rakitic brought the score to 3-0 in injury time.

Croatia's captain Luka Modric was elected Man of the Match.

“We scored goals, which is important, but the most important thing is that we completed our task, which is to go through to the knockout stage,” Modric said after the match.

“We have to be happy… we’ve won, reached our first task, we went through. We must stay humble and go on,” Croatia’s team coach Zlatko Dalic told the state broadcaster HRT.

Croatia now has six points in Group D, after their opening win against Nigeria 2-0.

This defeat for Argentina comes after a 1-1 draw against Iceland, which means their chances for going through to the final 16 depend on the result of the Nigeria-Iceland match, scheduled for Friday.

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