Tottenham do not need Luka Vuskovic to play every minute of Croatia’s World Cup run for this tournament to matter.
The more interesting question is whether Roberto De Zerbi can use the 19-year-old’s knockout-stage wait as a sharper read on where the centre-back actually sits in Tottenham’s defensive succession plan.
Spurs confirmed that Croatia face Portugal in Toronto in the early hours of Friday, 3 July, with Vuskovic having started the opening 4-2 defeat to England before staying unused in the wins over Panama and Ghana. That is not a failure. For a teenager inside a veteran Croatia squad, it is a live education.
The pressure point for Tottenham is different. De Zerbi has already added senior defensive pieces, while Jan Paul van Hecke and Micky van de Ven have been central to the recent World Cup discussion around his back line. Vuskovic is the longer play, but Portugal can still give Spurs a valuable answer.
Portugal Fixture Turns Patience Into Evidence
Croatia’s route into the last 32 has been awkward enough to make the Portugal tie useful from a Tottenham perspective. The Guardian reported that Croatia beat Ghana 2-1 to secure second place in Group L, with Nikola Vlasic heading the winner from Luka Modric’s corner after Ghana had equalised through Derrick Luckassen.
That matters because Croatia did not drift through on reputation. They had to manage tension, late momentum swings and the emotional pull of Modric’s likely final World Cup. Vuskovic watching that from the bench is still exposure to a standard Tottenham cannot recreate in pre-season friendlies.
De Zerbi’s system asks centre-backs to defend space, carry possession into pressure and stay calm when games become stretched. Vuskovic’s Hamburg loan gave him senior rhythm, but tournament football tests decision-making differently. The next step is not simply whether he can win headers. It is whether he can process elite forwards, sudden transitions and crowd pressure without becoming reckless.
That distinction should influence Tottenham’s summer planning. A player can be too raw for automatic Premier League starts and still too valuable to be treated as expendable. The club need a pathway that separates development risk from market impatience.
Why Tottenham Should Resist A Simple Sale Narrative
The temptation with Vuskovic is to turn every bench role into a transfer-market argument. Tottenham have already had to deal with interest around the defender, including the earlier Brighton-linked valuation noise and a separate transfer-request pressure line, but this summer should be about clarity rather than panic.
Tottenham’s own World Cup squad note described Vuskovic as a defender who had shone on loan at Hamburg, while also noting that he had already scored for Croatia in a senior international against Colombia. Bundesliga’s tournament profile similarly framed him as one of the competition’s young defensive names to watch after his Hamburg season.
That profile is exactly why Spurs need to be careful. A 19-year-old centre-back with aerial power, range of passing and senior international exposure is not a normal squad asset. He is either a future starter, a strategic loan decision, or a premium sale. Treating him as loose collateral would be lazy squad building.
The Portugal fixture can sharpen that decision even if he starts on the bench again. If Zlatko Dalic turns to Vuskovic against elite attacking pressure, Tottenham get a direct stress test. If he remains unused, De Zerbi still gets a player returning from a month around Croatia’s biggest football personalities, a knockout camp and a tactical environment shaped by Modric, Mateo Kovacic and Josko Gvardiol.
That is not as clean as a 90-minute scouting report. It may be more realistic.
Tottenham’s rebuild cannot be built only around immediate senior signings. De Zerbi also has to decide which young players are worth protecting from the market. Vuskovic’s World Cup has become a quiet but important part of that audit.
