Luka Modric left the lawn of the Lusail stadium in the 81st minute to the respectful applause of more than 88,000 spectators, including many Argentinians. At best, we will only see him again in the World Cup for the anecdotal match for third place on Saturday. As for his future in selection, he has so far left room for doubt.
But to those who doubted it, the “little prince of Zadar” also confessed in a whisper that the years had taken over his body: “If you have a secret, a recipe for me to stay young, give it to me …” At 37, he can dream of the Euro in 2024. For the 2026 World Cup, it seems more complicated.
Golden Ball 2018
He will leave a big void. Between 2008 and 2021, he is the only player to disrupt the Messi-Ronaldo stranglehold on the Ballon d’Or, pocketed in 2018, the year of his lost World Cup final. Modric is “one of the most complete circles in the world”, a “fantastic speed”, a unique “vision of the game”, summed up Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
“He never loses the ball”, recently boasted Carlo Ancelotti, his coach at Real Madrid, who always makes him a basic man, crucial in the conquest of the Champions League in 2022, the last of the five won by the Croatian with the Spanish club.
old-fashioned caress
His unique signature is this exterior of the law, a caress as old-fashioned as it is marvellous. But as Ronaldo was not limited to his crossings of legs or Ronaldinho to his comma, this gesture is not enough to describe it. Modric is both an old-fashioned number 10, who sees the game faster than the others, an exceptional dribbler, a fighter, a passer capable of addressing crosses, passes behind the defenses or to perform the last lethal gesture, right or left.
The 2018 World Cup will remain his masterpiece. Never was there a more surprising finalist than this small Croatia. It was the tournament of fulfilled promises for Modric. Admittedly, the young midfielder was named in the standard team for Euro 2008, that of his hatching, just before his transfer to Tottenham from Dinamo Zagreb. But then came the lean cows.
Everything could have ended badly in the round of 16 when he missed the penalty for the win against Denmark (1-1 ap), which did not prevent him from trying again in the penalty shootout. “I knew the pressure that would weigh on me if I missed again,” he said in the Captains series, produced by Fifa. Full center, he won his face-to-face with goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.
Because another characteristic of Modric is his mind. Who can surprise as he carries around an image of being very shy off the pitch. “I don’t like talking about myself too much, it’s like bringing her back. But I always felt like I was a leader,” he says.
Mental
This is confirmed by his compatriots, the “senators” of 2018, Demagoj Vida, Dejan Lovren, Ivan Perisic, as the new guard.
“Luka doesn’t need to shout for us to listen to him,” summarizes Andrej Kramaric. “Seeing people like Luka Modric running and + dying + on the pitch gives young people extra energy,” added full-back Josip Juranovic. “In my career, nothing was given to me easily,” Modric explains in the Captains series. At Tottenham as at Real, there were initial doubts but Modric always ended up winning.
This strength of character, Modric draws it from his personal story, that of a young refugee fleeing the massacres of the Croatian War of Independence (1991-95). “Football allowed us to escape from everything that was going on around us,” he recalls. His relatives tell of the kid who was playing on the asphalt in front of the hotel in Zadar where the family had taken refuge. “When I look at my photos as a child, I always had a balloon.”
From this period, Modric keeps a deep wound. The death of his grandfather, his namesake, with whom, he says, he spent days in the mountains overlooking the Dalmatian coast. “I’m sad he didn’t see at least some of what I did.”