Luka Modrić has come a long way to where he is today at Real Madrid. The following mini documentary shows Luka’s rise from war-torn Zadar (where he was born and raised) to a failed trial at Hajduk Split, his domination at Mostar and Dinamo Zagreb, all the way to his mega transfers to Tottenham, and now, Real Madrid.
It’s a solid 17-minute documentary which is narrated in Spanish, but the majority is in English and Croatian. Even CroatianSports.com “friend” Aleksandar Holiga makes an appearance.
Players as talented as Luka should come through our youths more often. The problem is the way football is politically run for money in the country, with absolutely no view or preference to player development. All the managers just want full pockets.
We should take a learning experience from Modric’s story. Attention Mamic and the rest: if they don’t come from connected families, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sign them!
While Bilic has plenty of options in midfield (Ivan Rakitic, Niko Kranjcar, Ivan Perisic), and in attack (Eduardo and Nikola Kalinic), defence is a real problem. Lyon’s Dejan Lovren has left the squad with an achilles injury and depending on where the manager chooses to play Corluka, Joe Simunic of Dinamo Zagreb and Eintracht Frankfurt’s Gordon Schildenfeld are candidates for the central roles while Domagoj Vida should begin at right-back with either Ivan Strinic or Danijel Pranjic on the left.
o man this brought memories of my childhood playing at banine na visnjuku and the luka wearing the same oversized zadarkomerc jersey we wore. crazy to think i trained next to him. zivio luka! zivio zadar! zivila hrvatska!
Hvala jaimejivi!
Nicely done.
are sure about the answer.
The Translation of the Spanish parts in the documentary, I will make the subtittles soon…
This is the road that comunicate the center of Croatia with the dalmatian coast, the first glimpse of the sea informs the traveler that he is close to Zadar.
A road that 27 years ago, Jasminka and Stipe Modric toured to give birth his son Luka in a Hospital
A travel of 60 Km from the Modric’s true home, the village that not coincidentially have the name of the family, In the region of obrovac.
A rural and montanious zone, barely populated and with rests of the barbarity that shook the balkans in the 90’s.
This is the current house of Luka Modric in the region, separated for just 5 km from the house that he occupied in the firsts six years of his life.
have been 21 years since the day that they had to abandon the house, and today the house remains in the same form after the serbian bombing.
The time have passed but there is still a cartel that warn the presence of mines
The Modric’s family as many more, had to abandon the town and head to the city only with clothes that they wore at the moment, becoming in war refugees.
Luka had six years at the time,their first accommodation would be the kolovare hotel, a enormous facility that turns out into a refuge.
With this big fluke, the little luka modric atracts the atention of his first club the NK Zadar, his family was tranferred to a new accomadation next to the training ground.
The bad part was that the football in that time wasn’t the more important thing
Luka Modric entered in the NK Zadar Academy in the middle of the war, and one of his first coaches was Miodrag Paunovic.
Even though the key person in this years and for the rest of his life was Tomislav Basic. The Luka Modric Sports Father.
Basic supervised the Lukas’s development since the beginning, including the time in that training implied a big risk.
The worst part of the war for Zadar concluded in 1993, Luka continued with his formation and even had a personal trainer for two years.
The Club knows that they had a diamond polishing
But not takes much time before a new problem to overcome appeared, a taboo that is alive today in the football, the size.
Luka spend two weeks in a Hajduk Split try out, but his
phisical lacks was more important for them than his quality.
But Luka not leave the football, he was always the the smallest player in the group and kept playing in the Zadar youth system, growing, travelling and wining tournaments without lost the hapiness.
Until was imperative take him to a enviroment that helped him to improve as a player.
Luka Modric landed off in the most important football club in croatia, the biggest and more laureate with thirteen leagues, eleven cups and one fairs cup.
A club that saw the biggest legends of the croatian football, rejected for the club of his childhood the Hajduk split,he joins theirs biggest rival the Dinamo Zagreb.
In this club he progress throught the different youth categories, the predjuices persisted but his tecnique kept him alive
The Dinamo admired his talent, but distrusted about his phisic when he was at the age to jump to the first team.For this reason they decided to test Luka in roughest League in the Balkans.
A new sucestful test, the hardest one as a player but there was another test waiting before to got a chance with the first team, the Dinamo wants to see Luka in a the croatian first league.
A neighbourhood Club close to Zagreb that played in the First league, the club that will give luka the chance to show his potential, the coach was srecko bogdan a veteran bundesliga defender that gave modric what he needed.
Six matches were enough for modric, after six games he got the called up of the U21, the Inter Zapresic was the leader at winter break,and then Dinamo decided to get him back.
Luka returned to Zagreb with nineteen years, he has came through all the proofs and this time he came to stayed, since 2005 nobody will stoped him, he was with people like Corluka, Eduardo and Zoran Mamic who had arrived recently from the bundes liga.
The prediction was short, Dinamo win the league that year with a eleven points of advantage and Modric was a Star, it was the first tittle of the Five that Modric won with Dinamo in three years, and Modric take a personal revenge in the last match scoring agaisnt Hajduk the club that rejected him.
The rest of the travel is more Known for everybody, four seasons in tottenham with brilliant moments but without the posibility of win tittles, Luka needed a new challenge to grow up as a football player.
After he came to madrid luka lifted his first trophy in years, a feeling that he missed.
two questions Luka Should play as MC or MCD and he will be able to be sucesful in the middle of all the competition that he will face, the people who better knows him is sure about the answer.
Bozji blagoslov bio s tobom Luka……
Why would u name ur kid that and mess it up. Sramota
11th place jebem ti stimac get rid of him!!!
Saw this before but still amazing
How about some recognition for sharing this. 🙂
Croatia dropped out of the top 10 fifa rankings and fell to 11.
http://www.index.hr/sport/clanak/hrvatska-vise-nije-top-10-reprezentacija-/640024.aspx
http://www.croatiantimes.com/news/General_News/2012-10-03/30034/Parents_name_their_son_Christiano_Ronaldo
Why not name him Luka?
Has anyone heard from Aleksandar Holiga on the Sammir promotion Breh?
Some say Vagin and some say Vagina…..
Opps 🙁
Dalmatia? Yellow card, jebala te Dalmatia, kaze se Dalmacija
I have family who fought there. They saved Dalmatia but the history books won’t teach you that.
@ Ziva
Yes but us Zadar people are special so we get a seperate shout out. How’s ATL this morning?
Hvala Ante i Denis. Bravo!
Great documentary on Luka and Hrv.
I have been on this site for a few years and have to say well done job Ante and Denis. Thanks for giving us this website and keep up the excellent work guys. Bog i Hrvati
battle of Dalmatia?????? Wasn’t it a battle throughout Croatia?
Either way….nice documentary. I think most of us are aware of everything that was in it, but still well done.
Respect to the defenders of Zadar who stopped the Cetniks cold and helped win the battle of Dalmatia!!!
this was well done. go luka !
Excellent
That was good