As of November 2020[update], since the 1992 inception of the top level Croatian association football league competition, the Prva HNL, 132 players have scored three goals (a hat-trick) or more in a single match.
The first player to achieve the feat was Dean Ljubančić, in May 1992, who scored three times for Rijeka in a 3–0 victory over Istra.
Eighteen players, on a total of 21 occasions, have scored more than three goals in a match: Marijo Dodik holds the record for most goals in a match, netting six times for Slaven Belupo in a 7–1 victory over Varteks, in October 2000;[1][2] Goran Vlaović scored more than three goals in three different games (twice in 1993, once in 1995), while Mate Dragičević achieved it in two different games (both in 2002).
In April 2008, Rijeka's Radomir Đalović and Zadar's Želimir Terkeš scored opposing hat-tricks in a match that Rijeka won 5–3;[3] of the 195 total hat-tricks, Terkeš' was the first, and one of only four total, scored by a player on the losing club.
Four players have each scored hat-tricks for at least three clubs: Igor Pamić (Istra, Pazinka, Osijek), Davor Vugrinec (Varteks, Rijeka, Dinamo Zagreb, NK Zagreb), Zoran Zekić (Zadar, Kamen Ingrad, Cibalia) and Ivan Krstanović (NK Zagreb, Rijeka, Zadar).