Further glory in legend of little Luka
Croatia’s hero has always defied the odds, writes Jonathan Northcroft in Doha.
Casemiro once said he would tell his grandchildren that he had played with Luka Modric – but that was more a nightmare than an honour for the Brazilian in an epic and utterly confounding quarterfinal yesterday.
After Neymar’s goal for the ages it seemed Casemiro’s team were going to dance through the rest of extra time into the last four. But little Modric, and tiny Croatia, stopped the music with a late 1-1 leveller and somehow – 4-2 on penalties – shocked the world again.
There are grey hairs in Modric’s wispy beard these days and lines on that familiar, bird-like face. He is 37. He has played almost 950 games, 160 of them for his country, bearing the responsibility of being Croatia’s greatest player.
His race appeared to almost be run, at this level, when he was substituted, looking shattered, as Croatia clung on for penalties in the previous round against Japan. And yet here, at Education City, he gave a masterclass, summoning fresh energy to roll back the years and push his team into the World Cup’s final week, just as he did in 2018.
He took them all the way to the final then, winning the Ballon d’Or, and it was in the middle of the golden age that he and Casemiro enjoyed at Real Madrid together. Across nine seasons as team-mates they stacked up Champions Leagues, Club World Cups, Spanish championships.
The pecking order was always clear. In midfield Casemiro did the dirty work and Modric did his twinkling, show-running thing. And now, in Education City, they were directly against each other. And so the little Croatian snatched the bucket from his old water-carrier and poured a gallon of cold heartbreak all over him. It was Modric, just when Croatia seemed done, who chested a ball down and played a smart, short pass to start a move that ended with Bruno Petkovic’s 117thminute equaliser. It was Casemiro, poor Casemiro, who found himself straining to get back to try to defend alone against the counterattack. The Modric story is Croatia’s story. Here was a boy born in a village, raised in a stone house by his grandfather, who was a refugee at
the age of six when his grandad was shot dead by Serbian militants in the Croatian war of independence. His family were rehoused in a hotel in Zadar that was turned into a shelter, and he honed his football skills in the car park, despite being told he was too weak and shy to play. Such life experience also breeds compassion, it seems – a touching sight was Modric comforting Rodrygo and other Brazilians after the shoot-out was done.
Casemiro dispossessed Modric, but Modric dispossessed Casemiro. In the 32nd minute there was a gorgeous pattern where Modric spread to Mario Pasalic and then kept moving to take a pass from Josip Juranovic and then twisted into space to make an onrushing Neymar look dumb.
The red-chequered Croatian section loved that, clapping and singing for their miniature matador. Later came a particularly lovely Modric pass, played with his outstep. The happy sigh of approval came from not just Croatians, but neutrals.