Luka Modrić’s trophy cabinet is 99% full. The only piece of silverware missing is the World Cup.
Over the past decade at Real Madrid, Modrić has won Champions League 5x, La Liga 3x, Club World Cup 4x, Spanish SuperCup 4x, and the Copa del Rey once.
But will this week’s Club World Cup Final against Asian champions, Al Hilal, be the final time he lifts a trophy for Real Madrid? This is surely Modrić’s last campaign with Los Blancos after a magical 11-year run. Real Madrid will be favorites to win on Saturday even though they received a small scare in the semifinal Wednesday night against Egyptian side, Al Ahly. Real Madrid were up 2-1 late but Modrić would have his 87th minute penalty blocked by the keeper. It wasn’t the best shot to the right side. However, Real Madrid would score twice in extra time to win 4-1.
Madrid will now face Al Hilal, who shocked South American champs, Flamengo, 3-2 in the semifinal. 90% of the time, the Club World Cup consists of a final between the European and South American champs. That will not happen this year.
Real Madrid are currently eight points behind Barcelona in the La Liga race. They are expected to get past Liverpool in the Champions League Round of 16; but who knows what the quarterfinal tie would hold for them with Manchester City, Napoli, PSG/Bayern Munich still in the hunt. Real Madrid are in the semifinals of the Copa Del Rey, but they will meet a red hot Barcelona side across two legs.
So could Saturday be Luka’s last time on a podium for Real Madrid? The magic 8-ball says: Chances Are Likely.
What’s a good next move for Kovačić?
Love to see him back in Spain or Italy?
Real Madrid return?
Milan?
Yea, Serie A or La Liga would be good.
Ha clearly the board is unable to pick up sarcasm
@suba
The truth most recently served as a guiding light to the board during the World Cup making bold and correct call after bold and correct call
Luka modric is also serbian on his mothers side.
The Truth
I would actually give you more respect if you actually spoke the truth
Suba
Such a pathetic comment
Just ignore the clown.
You had me fooled I actually thought you were a glass half empty nostalgic Yugo truth?
Jealousy is a wasted emotion but it’s obviously keeping you up at night not being a Croat!
I still don’t understand why non-Croatian soccer fans keep chiming in on the site, or people who are not fans of the Croatian team. Lol. If you don’t route for Croatia, then don’t post! It’s pretty simple.
We are the best footballing nation (pound for pound) in the world… expect trolls
https://www.croatiaweek.com/josko-gvardiol-what-his-surname-means-and-where-it-comes-from/#:~:text=%27The%20surname%20Gvardiol%2C%20which%20originates,known%20Catalan%20football%20surname%20Guardiola.
Despite the “gvardiol”s being “from” zadar, it’s clear this is a non croatian lineage. The whole coast line of croatia, particularly zadar, which rarely had any actual croatian independence, has huge lineage back to other conquering powers like italy. gvardiol is clearly a modification of an italian name like guardiola. The italian settlers in dalmatia though simply put in a bit more effort to Croatianize it unlike Ivan Santini’s family.
You know what is generally fascinating about croatian history is that pretty much every other european country on the Mediterranean became a major power at some point. Spain, portugal, italy, france, greece, turkey. The only exception was croatia.
Oh, it’s clearly a modification of an Italian last name you say? LOL
Even if we assume that his last name was originally ‘Guardiola’, then I think your theory falls completely apart from the fact that there no Guardiolas in Italy.
So, according to you, the Guardiola family moved from Italy, Croatianized their last name to Gvaridol, then murdered all of the Guardiolas in Italy to cover their tracks.
But assuming his last name was originally Guardiola, it’s far more likely that it came from a Spanish or Portuguese settler who may have traveled (and remained) in the Zadar region centuries ago, with the last name just naturally being Croatianized over time.
This would mean he has zero Italian lineage, and would even mean that he barely has any Spanish lineage left at all.
When you look at places like Tomislavgrad, you have people sharing last names like Gašpar (a very Portuguese name that means Casper) and you even have our own Borna Sosa (who is from Posušje) carrying a Spanish last name.
Does this mean that there was a migration of Portuguese and Spaniards who settled in Posušje? Is Hercegovina suddenly a hub for migration from the Iberian peninsula?
It’s far more likely that Borna’s last name is the result of a nickname that people in the selo (who all share the same last names) give to each other to differentiate themselves from one another.
My own family surname has a nickname attached to it that sounds nothing Croatian, but only because everyone had the same name. The nickname was created for my grandfather only two generations ago, and it almost ended up on my birth certificate.
I guarantee Borna Sosa has no Spanish heritage, and it’s very likely that his last name is simply the nickname that found its way onto the birth certificate too.
In terms of Gvardiol’s case, it could be that his last name was a nickname given to his Croatian family.
It also could have also been a ‘Guardiola’ settler from the Iberian peninsula from centuries ago.
Another theory could be that he is of Arbanasi (Albanian) heritage, who are Catholic Albanians who settled in Zadar and still have a community there. Arbanasi can have Latin sounding last names, like the mayor (Božidar Kalmeta) and famous Zadar basketball player (Josip Gjergja)…so maybe there is something there. But again, his name doesn’t really sound Arbanasi and even if it was, these are small influences from people who migrated to Zadar several centuries ago.
So, in short, no he’s not Italian.
But nice try in trying to undermine all things Croatian though. You’re getting better. Just need a bit more reading and more confidence in your writing. You’ll get there.
I was make a similar comment like the one Maminjo posted. Guardiola is.korw than likely Spanish or Portugese. But that was one hell of a rebuttal Maminjo. Lol
I was make a similar comment like the one Maminjo posted. Guardiola is more than likely Spanish or Portugese. But that was one hell of a rebuttal Maminjo. Lol
Zadar region hrvat checking in, everyone I know has almost no connection to Italy… the ones that did moved to istria/ trieste/ friuli region 70 years ago
It’s also important to note that just because a region was ruled by a foreign empire, doesn’t mean that the region reflects the population of that empire.
Bosna being ruled by the Ottoman (Turkish) empire is a good example of how a country could be ruled for several centuries but it doesn’t mean that these Bosniaks are of Turkish descent (even though many people ignorantly assume so because of the shared religion).
People change their last names all the time. I met a devout muslim girl once (whose family was from Bosna) who tried to tell me that her family were actually Turkish and that the Yugos forced them to change their names with the ‘ić’ ending.
I asked her which city in Turkey they were from, and she couldn’t answer. The reality is, that her family were likely just converts (like almost everyone in Bosna) who changed their Christian names to Muslim ones, but the ‘ić’ endings are obviously resulting from the slavic language group. There was never any mass migration of Turks settling in Bosna.
Another example of the last name changes (and nicknames) is that story on Total Croatia News that was posted about that ‘Škoti’ family in Croatia.
The history of that town is that there was literally a dude from Scotland who settled in Croatia and had a big family. They simply nicknamed him Škoti and it became his last name. He had a Scottish last name, but I guess Škoti was easier and just became the nickname (and eventually his official surname) which passed on to all his descendants. Now, there are a few households in Dalmacija (Zadar included) with the last name Škoti. Much like the last name Gvardiol, it’s an endemic one that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
This is why you need to take last names with a grain of salt.
If ‘truth’ were to analyze this, he would be telling us that Škoti was an Italian name that was Croatianized from the noble Italian house of ‘Sciotti’, ha ha. Hey, it would’ve been a good guess, but not at all accurate.
Strange.
My comment here was removed.
By “world power” you mean a colonizing country. Yeah, it’s true we never became that. That’s something to be proud of you ass-clown. If there were 50 million of us you could bet that we’d dominate most sports and the world would be speaking in Croatian as a second language not English. We’re a world power in nogomet now, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
In terms Of gvardiols longevity, he may be from zadar but his lineage is from Italy
Also i hate to say it but a big drawback to gvardiol will be his injury proneness
No it’s not, lol.
Honestly, you need to read a book man, ha ha.
Minus the penalty miss (never a strength), Modrić was his World class Self.
I would love for Modrić to choose Croatia over Real as an example of how we roll.
Real is corny to not want his presence around the club.
Let Modrić go to Milan for his swan song.
Never understood people saying he’s not good from the spot.
•
https://www.transfermarkt.us/luka-modric/elfmetertore/spieler/27992
From I can recall, he only missed two key penalties for Croatia. He missed vs Turkey 08 and Denmark 2018
Well, statistically 75-80% of the time penalties go in.
So, Modric’s conversion for us is around average.
He missed 3 PKs for us (against Turkey, Denmark and our most recent Cyprus qualifier).
Not including PK shootouts, Modric has scored 8 and missed 3 (which works out to be 72%).
However, If you add in those two PKs he scored in the shootouts against Denmark and Brazil, then it goes up to 77%.
I think the issue that people have with Modric’s PKs is that they are generally not well taken PKs.
His PKs are usually not struck hard or wide, and tend to be very close to the keeper. He doesn’t send keepers the wrong way (like Krama and Raketa do) before shooting, and he’s been very lucky a few times with many of his PKs.
The WC2018 Denmark PK he took was bad, where he shot it at Schmeichel’s feet, but was lucky Schmeichel dove early. The Brazil one wasn’t that wide either and was a wrong guess by Becker. Pretty much all of his PKs are low and close to the center of the net, but he doesn’t send the goalkeeper in any direction first. He simply just takes them and hopes for the best.
When you look at how Orsic took his (where Becker guessed right and STILL couldn’t reach it) or how Nikola Vlasic buried both his PKs at the World Cup (both of them rocket shots that would go in, even if the goalkeeper got a hand on it) or how Krama and Raketa sent Schmeichel the wrong way first, then gently shoots it in the opposite direction…then you can understand why Modric’s PKs pale in comparison to those.
When it comes to PKs, I want someone with a good success rate, I don’t ask for much more. His is good for Croatia and club. If his form or aesthetics are really poor, one would think his percentage would be too, given there is a decent sample size here.
seems popular to shit on Modric these days, I guess for the clout of calling the end b4 others
He looked good yesterday though, playing in a wide open match. Say what you want anyway, but at least he isn’t hurt all the time like Benzema
Shit on, where? Social media? They shit on everyone, I don’t partake.
•
Managingmadrid.com: Luka Modric: 7.5. Quiet for stretches, but brilliant in moments. Three key passes and a surgical vertical pass to Rodrygo in the build-up to Fede Valverde’s goal.
I agree that the media does give him a hard time, especially after that balloon d’or award. I feel like after that everyone is constantly questioning the guy again and again…it’s very irritating because you start to ask yourself what more can the guy do to prove himself??
It would be nice to see him add another Champions League trophy to be tied amongst those who have won the most. That would be a nice way for him to go out I think, and maybe if possible with a Nations League and or Euro trophy but that will have be seen. He is getting up there in age, but again yesterday was another great game from him.
Nah. Most people love Modric.
Along with Ibrahimovic, he’s probably been the best player in the world at his age (without dropping off).
Messi may reach 37+ years of age and still be a top player, but you never know. Ronaldo’s dropoff was sudden, so we’ll see how it goes.
Ibra’s mom is from Zadar, so maybe there’s something in the water with him and Luka both being able to play at such a high level for so long.
Hopefully that’s the case, because it means we have Gvardiol leading our backline for the next two decades (since he’s a Zadar kid too).