SHOWTIME FOR MAGICIAN’S ASSISTANT
Kovacic stifling idol is key to any turnaround for Chelsea
SINCE he was a 13-year-old, with the whole of Europe at his feet, Mateo Kovacic has lived in the shadow of Luka Modric.
But now he has to find a way to outshine him in what could be the key battle of the Bernabeu tonight.
If the old master Modric, 36, is allowed to dictate play with his vision and passing, Chelsea have not got a hope of seeing the ball enough to retrieve the two-goal deficit they bring forward from Stamford Bridge.
Kovacic’s job is to use all the energy of his 27-year-old legs to try to dominate that illustrious Real Madrid midfield – a thought that would have been considered close to blasphemy by his teenage self when their two paths first crossed.
Having been impressive at the academy of his birth town of Linz in Austria, scouts from the top clubs came knocking at Kovacic’s door in 2007.
Ajax, Inter Milan, Juventus, Bayern Munich.
Instead, Kovacic chose to move to Dinamo Zagreb, where a certain blond-haired magician was about to show the sort of form that would earn him a joint-club record move to Tottenham just 12 months later. “He is an amazing player,” said Kovacic. “Obviously he is Croatian and I admired him when I was a child – he played for my favourite club Dinamo Zagreb.
“In the last five, six, seven years he has been at the same level, which is amazing.
“The reason he is so good is because he loves football so much, he lives it every day, he is a professional and if he keeps going like this I can see him still playing for three or four more years at such a high level. It is nice to play against him – and difficult. Last week we were losing and it’s never nice when you are losing and you have a hard time.
“I always prefer to have him on my team but at this moment we are against each other and ready to show our best and try to go through.”
Modric has already anointed Kovacic as his successor for Croatia after getting to know him better when the Chelsea star joined up with him again at Real Madrid in 2015 – as well as obviously playing with him at international level.
It was while watching Modric in action during his time settling in at Madrid that Kovacic learned a lesson he intends to put into place himself for this match. “There are many comebacks and I was
involved in one, in the season 201516, when we were 2-0 down in Wolfsburg and we came to the Bernabeu and the team won 3-0,” recalled Kovacic.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hattrick but it was Modric who was given the honour of his own standing ovation when he was replaced in injury-time at the end of the remarkable turnaround.
“Now we have our chances and we are motivated to show our best,” he said.
“We didn’t have our best game last week and the result was not good.
“There is hope and we are motivated to show our best.”