World Cup 2018: Croatia star Luka Modric refuses to give up hope of famous win… as life’s taught him to battle on
Nine months ago the Croatians were on the brink of missing out on the World Cup, but they beat the odds to make it
IT was no way for a man to celebrate his 100th cap.
Head in hands, eyes welling up, boos echoing around near-empty stands, press-box pencils being sharpened for a post-match savaging.
This was Luka Modric just nine months ago, on the brink of missing out on probably his last World Cup.
At moments like this, football means everything — even when you’ve been brought up in wartime, lived through your grandfather being executed and seen your family’s home torched.
Nine months on he is relaxed and smiling, 30 hours away from leading the nation he adores into the final itself, sitting beside the man who took everything that was wrong and made it right again.
That man is Zlatko Dalic. A man Modric speaks of almost as another dad.
The Real Madrid playmaker said: “When we drew 1-1 with Finland in Rijeka back in October and lost top place in our group, there was only one game left to sort things out.
“The federation sacked the coach, Ante Cecic, and brought in Zlatko for that game in Ukraine.
“He sat us down in the dressing room in Kiev before kick-off and he set about talking us up, restoring our self-belief and confidence.
“He told us we were still good players, despite the crisis. It meant a lot to every one of us.
FROM RUSSIA WITH LIVE All the latest action, news, goals and gossip from the World Cup
MOST READ IN WORLD CUP
“We went out and got the result, 2-0, then we went to a play-off with Greece and breezed past them.
Since then, we have worked and worked under the coach until we sit here now.
“We love his sincerity, his approach to football and to life. He has perked us up, his attitude to each and every player is special.
“People know my story and I don’t like to dwell on what happened in the war.
“All I’ll say is that it taught me to never give up, to give in to circumstances, always to soldier on.
“There are obstacles, ups and downs. But you always have to fight, to struggle, to believe in yourself if you want to realise your dreams.
“That is what we did to get through that crisis in Kiev and it is what has led me to this place in my life.”
He is an impressive figure is Modric, a floppy-haired, high-cheekboned 32-year-old whose delicate looks belie extra- ordinary inner strength.
He says “people know my story” in almost an embarrassed tone. As if it should not matter his Croat upbringing made his folks enemies of the Serb militia in the village of Jesenice.
They seized his grandad — his hero, the man he was named after — as he grazed his cattle, putting him in front of a firing squad.
But it does matter. An experience like his in an era when we are forever told footballers have it easy, is a horrible reminder that it has been anything but for this Croatian squad.
When his home was burned down, Modric spent years living in a crumbling hotel in Zadar.
He would sit indoors and hear mortars fall then, when the raids ended, rush out to kick a ball in the car park.
Those were his first steps to the World Cup final. Anyone who would begrudge him his day, surely has no soul.