(During the next 30 days, starting May 10th, CroatianSports will be giving “season grades” to 30 of Croatia’s most important football players: Starting XI, bench, fringe, prospects. Grades will be given on preseason expectations vs. actual season performance; not stats.)
Day 1: Luka Modrić
Season Grade: A
Season Highlight:
Free kick assist; full-field run topped off by hockey assist against Liverpool in Champions League Round of 16. Bossed the Brazil midfield in World Cup quarterfinal match. Won the ball that eventually went through Vlašić, Oršić, Petković for the extra time equalizer.
Team next season:
Stay at Real Madrid at least one more year until EURO 2024. Al Nassr rumour recently shut down as Modrić declined contract and boat loads of cash to move to Saudi Arabia.
What to improve next season:
Keep fitness levels up by getting sufficient rest in order to allow himself to continue performing the way he has been in his late-30s.
What the future holds:
-Lift the Nations League trophy for Croatia this June.
-Play one more season at Real Madrid and win La Liga/CL or both.
-Be 100% fresh for EURO 2024 next summer.
Real Madrid player level -o
knowing your place . . .
World Class [Gold Type]
Luka Modric
Be Considered [Silver Type]
Thibaut Courtois, Karim Benzema, Toni Kroos
Decent Players [Bronze Type]
Vinícius Júnior, Rodrygo, Dani Carvajal, David Alaba,
Eden Hazard, Marco Asensio
@ maminjo
I think stadiums are overrated
I don’t think modric is qualified to create a meaningful hnl team that becomes a farm team to the national team
Just look at hajduk and how they struggle to do it despite having generations of history, experience, cultural adoration etc
No way would modric know how to pull it off and especially under Croatian circumstances
Remember, he’s been out of croatia half his life and for 80 percent of the life he had a functioning brain for. He lives in Spain, is used to world class facilities with world class resources, his kids speak English
What could modric possibly know about bootstrapping a brand new football program in the challenging environment and buearacracy of croatia…. Very little
cringe. Very cringe.
Not sure what there is to disagree with there. All accurate. But many do cringe at the truth.
Well he obviously wouldn’t be there doing it himself, ha ha.
Even Mamic (as successful as he is) was known for surrounding himself with the right people. Modric would do the same, and I’m sure there are many who would love to work for him and build a development program.
You have guys like Romeo Jozak who have a ton of experience in Dinamo’s youth setup (now doing work in Saudi Arabia). Working in an Arab state is always temporary, and guys like Jozak would look for any reason to come back and would take a decent salary to do it. You could easily poach a few from Dinamo, as well other guys who are in foreign countries who were part of the Dinamo setup. Hey, you could even have Mamic working remotely from Medjugorje on contract (cash only of course).
Hajduk struggles to do it because everyone is constantly trying to cash in for themselves. They’re sitting on a mine of talent but they’re not committed to developing these youngsters. They always sell to the first bidder. That’s a big difference.
I’ve said it many times before, but Modric should leave Madrid to take the Saudi Arabia money. Jumping from 0 to 2 million makes a very big difference in your life. 2 million to 10 million is marginal But then all the way from about 10 million to probably about 250 million, not much is really changing.
Youre living in nice houses. Maybe you can fly private. But the rest is largely the same.
Modric has only 140 million in career earnings and probably some small endorsements on the side. After taxes, he’s probably looking at a fortune under 100 million and this is a tragedy.
You have random influencers making more than that in a couple years of youtube and instagramming and possibly the greatest midfielder of all time can’t crack the 100 million mark.
He’ll then spend about 40 million of that over his life time and leave 60 million to his kids. That will then be hit with a 50% estate tax leaving 30 million to be divided amongst his 3 children. That will leave them with 10 million a piece which with inflation by then will be like 2 million a piece in today’s money.
The greatest midfielder possibly in history and a croatian hero, and his kids will scrape by to buy a nice villa in zadar….. dubrovnik villa? fuggeta bout it
Bottom line, take the money Luka….. you earned and deserve it
I think that Modric should take the money, but only if he’s willing to do something for Croatia with it.
He’s already done so much for Croatia, but it would be legendary if he managed to score hundreds of millions from the Saudis and do something with it to advance the sport further (or build something else in the country that benefits the people).
Even if he wanted to do something fun with the money, he could probably resurrect NK Zadar, build a brand new stadium and fund a development program that could harness the insane football talent that the city of Zadar always produces. He could probably do all this with 100 millon Euro.
However, I don’t think Modric will get even close to the €200,000,000 that Ronaldo is being paid. He would probably get €50,000,000 per year which is great money but I’m not sure if they give him a multiyear guaranteed deal.
He should still take it…but AFTER the 2024 World Cup. 🙂
I mean Euro2024
@ Metak
Well said.
Now we have beaten every “big” team on the planet.
It’s time to win the UNL.
And then go for the Euro ‘24.
Portugal is the last one we haven’t beaten.
But to be fair to us, almost every time we’ve played them, we rolled out a B squad.
Euro96 loss was a B team (since we already clinched the quarters) and the two Nations League losses were experimental squads that Dalic stupidly rolled out.
The only legit match we played against them was the extra time loss at Euro 2016.
Which was dumb
We all know that game we played wrong and were beaten by a dirty squad that wasn’t getting called
Whatever, we moved on
There is no team on the planet we can’t beat
Tho we could lose to many to
But still I like our chances against any heavy weight now with fair ref
Our record (in competitive matches) against most of these teams is very good.
We have pretty good records against Italy, Germany, Netherlands, England, and Spain.
Even against the two South American powerhouses (Brazil and Argentina), we have a 1-2 record against each of them, and our losses to them were pretty controversial too.
France and Portugal are the only ones who generally always beat us, but a lot of that was thanks to Dalic messing around at the Nations League and gifting two games to each of them.
Just finished watching “Daring to Dream: England’s story at the 2018 FIFA World Cup” last night. Good for a laugh. They got beat twice by Belgium (once in the group stage and then again for third place) and were lucky to get by Colombia in the round of 16. How are these pieces of shit ranked higher than us?
Never mind that the rest of the world underestimates us, I don’t think we Croatians realize how good our team is. Mandzukic > Harry Kane. Peak Perisic in 2018 caused chaos against all teams facing us. I don’t think any England players could make our starting lineup up front or in midfield for 2018. And I don’t think people realize how badly Morocco wanted to win 3rd place for the “Arab” world in this last World Cup. Even with the ref against us (no VAR for a clear penalty shot) we beat a good Moroccan team “desperate” to win. And they were lucky it wasn’t more than 2-1. We just need to maintain our level going forward. No more laspses in concentration versus teams like Wales.
FIFA and the rest of the World wanted a Moroccan win.
They even appointed an Arabic referee for the match, ha ha.
They showed their true classless colors with the way they behaved during and after that match was over.