Page 16 - Soccer360 Issue 107

MODRIC SPOTLIGHT
DID YOU KNOW?
In recognition of his exceptional talent and contributions
to both club and country, Luka Modric was awarded the prestigious FIFA Ballon d’Or. He became
the first player other than Lionel Messi
or Cristiano Ronaldo to win the award since 2007.
Idon’t think I will ever entirely erase
the image from my mind. It’s the 98th minute against Italy and Croatia are poised to join the Euros 2024 last sixteen party only for Mattia Zaccagni to equalise. The camera pans to Luka Modric, the Croatian midfield genius sitting in the dugout after being substituted. It was Modric’s goal which had given his team the lead after he had earlier missed a penalty. His face appears stunned and ashen, cut with
the disbelief of a man who was flicking through his mobile phone checking his home security cameras after going on holiday only to find that he has left his
front door open! A legendary international football career wasn’t meant to end like this. This isn’t how the Gods of football treat one of their own.
Alas, we are reminded that amongst those rare days of glory there are many sad things in football, and all of us could no-doubt nominate our own particular moment when we felt as if our football world had ended.
A semi-final or final defeat, relegation, a points deduction or worse, going into administration or the crushing news that Jose Mourinho has just been appointed your club’s new manager.
And yes, to cite an annoying cliché’ there is more to life than football blah de blah. But when it comes to this particular brand of fanaticism, I am here to report that the dark cloud on the football horizon is drawing inevitably nearer. As the shadows lengthen over the career of, to my mind the greatest midfield player of his generation and one of the all-time greats, Luka Modric, one should truly reflect on the utter genius this man has brought to the game and the sheer delight in watching it in action wherever and whenever it is displayed. At 38 years of age, he has just won the Champions League for a record sixth time alongside teammate Dani Carvajal and is routinely, and correctly, described as the greatest Croatian player
of all time. Honestly, the man has more legs than an Olympian relay team. It ain’t easy, but just how do you pay tribute to a legend such as he? I’ll give it a shot.
A FOOTBALLING GENUIS.
Luka Modric. That soccer genius and ethereal virtuoso, a preternatural maestro who navigates the pitch with balletic legerdemain. His every manoeuvre is
an arabesque of cunning stratagems,
a chiaroscuro of kinetic sagacity, orchestrating the game’s cadence with symphonic precision, transmuting the banal into the sublime through pyrotechnic dexterity and kaleidoscopic vision. His prowess is an enigmatic confluence of cerebral alacrity and corporeal poetry, rendering the ordinary arcane and the predictable ineffable. But he’s also a man
of appreciation and generosity. When he was awarded the Ballon d’Or in 2018 Modric shelled out on 50 Rolex watches not only for his teammates but for the backroom staff at both Real Madrid and Croatia
as a thank you for their tireless backing that helped him win the most prestigious individual accolade in world football. Even
“THE MAN HAS MORE LEGS THAN AN OLYMPIAN RELAY TEAM. IT AIN’T EASY, BUT JUST HOW DO YOU PAY TRIBUTE TO A LEGEND SUCH AS HE?”
ABOVE:
On the club level, Modric seems to add to his hardware collection every year
RIGHT:
He has proved to be a leader on and off the field.
when he’s not playing, class just oozes
out of him! Ronaldo conversely probably presented every one of his Portuguese teammates and back-room staff etc with a signed photo of himself. Modric doesn’t cry either. When he missed the penalty in the aforementioned game against the Italians, he didn’t collapse into a sea of self-pity with a tearful eye on his personal stats. He got up, and within four minutes had put his country ahead.
FROM WARZONE TO FOOTBALL LEGEND.
The great man got his name from his grandfather, Luka Modric Snr, who sadly was brutally executed by Serbian Militants when Luka junior was barely six years old. We
can all only imagine at such a traumatizing childhood which he had to endure. At that stage in his life, I doubt whether he would have in any way fully understood that he was destined to go on to become one
of the greatest midfield footballers that
ever shoved a pair of shin guards down
his socks. And yet the boy did just that
and some. And who knows? Maybe it was
14 SOCCER360