Croatia won all three matches in Group D to finish top with a maximum nine points. They face Group C runners-up Denmark in Nizhny Novgorod on Monday morning AEST for a place in the quarter-finals.

"It's an important game for us. We've played fantastically in the group stage, we must be proud of it, but this new game makes us forget about everything that happened before," said Modric.

"It's high time for this generation to repeat the result of 1998. We are capable of this, we proved it by our performance in the group."