10

Luka Modric

Croatia

Position
Club
Age
Midfielder
Real Madrid
38
Caps
Goals
Rating
Group16QFSFF
6
8
7

“What people don’t realise about Luka,” said the late Tomislav Basic, one of Modric’s early coaches whom he called his “second father”, “is that he is largely self-taught. For many days and months, this under-nourished, small kid played with the ball by himself at a refugee hotel’s parking lot, banging it against the wall and then controlling it with the half-turn that would become his trademark move...