It is hard to find the right words to describe the reverence that is shown for him throughout Croatia, but especially in his hometown of Zadar.
One of the locals told me that Modric should run for president while I was visiting this beautiful, peaceful town on the Dalmatian coast.
Nobody else could possibly compare. For next 100 years, there won’t be another like him.”
The ascent of Modric has proven to be more difficult and challenging than the Velebit mountain’s slopes in the little village of Modrici, close to Zadar, where the young Luka used to herd his grandfather’s goats when he was five years old.
He’d idle away the hours on unsuitable ground for farming, never mind football games.
His grandfather was slain ten meters from that garage door following the outbreak of Croatia’s independence struggle.
From this background, this pencil-thin, frail-looking youngster would rise above hardship to become one of his generation’s finest football players as well as one of his country’s most iconic icons.
His family had to flee when the Croatian war of independence broke out because his grandfather had been executed by rebels in Serbia and their house had burned down.
He spent the following seven years living as a refugee in Zadar hotels with his family, where the young Luka would play football in unorganized games on the parking lots of the hotels with other kids.
