One Last Dance, Luka Modric
06/28/2024 11:45 AM
For many years, Luka Modric has been dominating international football. It is all over, at least as a national team player for Croatia. Luka Modric has turned 38, but is still one of football’s most elegant players. This summer, the eternal midfield general took part in his fifth European Championship. An era could be over for captain Luka Modric and the rest of Croatia’s second, golden generation.
Ever since Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, the Croatian national football team has been a unit to be reckoned with. At home in Croatia, the country’s golden generation, the players who formed the foundation of the national team in the first years after the breakaway from Yugoslavia, are still spoken of with pathos. Great players such as Prosinečki, Boban, Suker and Jarni contributed to the success of the Croatian national team, with the third place in the World Cup in France 1998 being the definite highlight. The star team from 1998 is long gone, but despite the fact that Croatia has no more than four million inhabitants, the country has continued to produce very good footballers.
In their home country, the tribe in today’s national team is referred to as the second golden generation, and it is a generation that has far surpassed its predecessor. A dazzling Croatian team made a big impression at the 2018 World Cup. Croatia made it all the way to the final, where they lost 2-4 to France. Croatia continued to impress at the World Cup four years later, eventually finishing third. According to Croatia national team coach Zlatko Dalic, the results in 2018 and 2022 would not have been possible without Luka Modric in the team.
If you ask me to point to the main reason for the Croatian national team’s success, I point to Luka Modric, Dalic stated in an interview with Croatian television, after the team’s last match in Germany.
There are many indications that Dalic is right in his statements. Modric has been one of European football’s big names for nearly twenty years, and can look back on an adventurous career. Since moving from Tottenham to Real Madrid in 2012, he has won four La Liga titles and six Champions League titles, as well as countless individual accolades, including the biggest of them all, the Ballon d’Or in 2018.
Modric has many admirers, and one of the biggest is precisely national team manager Dalic. No one moves in the same way as Luka. He doesn’t play football, he dances, Dalic replied, when asked to describe the national team captain’s playing style.
Before the Euro started, optimism at home in Croatia was high. The Croats were considered one of the championship’s outsiders. The squad contained many veterans, and besides Modric, well-known names such as Kovacic, Perisic and Vida were with Germany. Now Croatia must return home, after a weak group stage. Croatia finished third in the “group of death”, after losing to Spain in Berlin, drawing with Albania in Hamburg, ending the group stage with a draw against reigning European champions Italy in Leipzig. The question many now ask themselves is whether the team was in overtime, that the many veterans no longer had the motivation needed, and that the squad contained too few young and hungry players. When asked by the Croatian media after Croatia’s exit from the EC was a fact, captain Modric refuted that the motivation and hunger were gone in the veterans who went to Germany.
We traveled to Germany with a good mix of experienced names and new, young players. There has never been a problem with the motivation in the Croatian team, as long as I have been with it it has been absolutely exceptional. And even though I left knowing that the end of my own national team career is nearing, Many expect that Modric and the veterans from Croatia’s second golden generation could leave the national team now that the Euro is over. But if we are to believe national team manager Dalic, there is still reason to be optimistic about the future.
A new generation is on its way. It will take some time, but in a few years I am sure that Croatia will field a team that is fully on par with the generation that is now about to give up on the national team.
Dalic should know what he’s talking about. Since being hired as national team manager in 2017, he has led Croatia to four straight play-offs, an impressive feat considering the country’s population. Dalic highlights the systematic talent work that is done in Croatia as an important reason for the national team’s success, but he has no doubt that the strong national feeling and pride in wearing the Croatian national team uniform are also factors that have been decisive. Football is very popular in Croatia, and we are good at developing talent, but I think the pride Croatian players feel when they play for their country is quite unique. It’s as if the players get an extra gear when they put on the national team jersey, as if it’s a matter of life or death.
Although Modric is expected to retire from the national team, he continues his club career with Real Madrid. Modric is no longer a permanent fixture in Carlo Ancelotti’s team, but the successful Italian coach has nevertheless emphasized the veteran’s importance to the Spanish big club. Luka is immortal, Ancelotti said at a press conference before the semi-final of this year’s Champions League, against Manchester City. – He is still a fantastic player, who wants to end his career at Real Madrid. I don’t know when it will happen, but I am sure that he will play for us next season as well. Real Madrid’s charismatic coach got what he wanted, and not long after Ancelotti’s comments, Modric signed a new contract that ties him to Los Blancos until the 2024/25 season. But before Modric pulls on the white Real Madrid shirt again in pursuit of new triumphs, he is taking his family on a well-deserved holiday.
It is tough to have to give up in this way. But I will come back stronger in the autumn. The desire to play football is as strong as before, so we’ll see how long the body lasts. Luka Modric has ended a long and rich national team career, but hopefully Croatian football fans will not have to wait long before a new golden generation of footballers emerges. If so, it will be the third since Croatia became independent in 1991.
Author; Geir Jacobsen
CHECK YOUR FOOTBALL RESULTS
WATCH MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
A TRUSTED SOURCE ON SPURS NEWS
