There is an exciting liturgy in the games that Luka Modric plays at the Santiago Bernabéu: every time Ancelotti removes him from the field, the stands say goodbye to him as if it were forever. He knows that this is one of his last functions, although he does not know how many there may still be. But there is a pattern that draws the trend especially clearly since the Italian’s return to Real Madrid in June 2021. One of his main tasks was to promote the transition to young people. The previous season the Croatian had played 79% of the possible minutes. In Ancelotti’s first he played 67%; in the next, 57%; and in this one, now at 38 years old, he is in the 45%.
The possibility that this will be Modric’s last season at the Bernabéu seems less and less far-fetched in the Madrid offices. Ancelotti has recently said several times in public that both the Croatian, Kroos and Nacho have it in their power to extend their contracts if they wish. However, a nuance is introduced in the club: in the spring they will review Modric’s situation, they will then see what they think and what he thinks, and they will make a decision “among all of them” about his continuity. They recognize that he is a special footballer and that is why they do not treat the case like any other, but the process will not be as automatic as the coach proposed.
For the Croatian, neither this nor his decreasing participation is a surprise. Last spring, before signing his latest contract extension until June 30, both the club and the coach explained to him that he would have a less leading role. According to sources familiar with these conversations, the footballer agreed. However, that has not prevented him from the displeasure of seeing what it is like to frequent the bench more and enter games from there more times than before, when he was rarely seen outside the starting eleven. This season he has been a starter in 60% of the games in which he has participated, the lowest proportion since he reached the summit with the Ballon d’Or in 2018. At some point, frustration has led him to have some bad gesture with Ancelotti , which the coach has fit with the naturalness of someone who still remembers how difficult it was for him to digest his own decline decades ago, according to sources close to the coach.
How he handled Marcelo’s last days at Real Madrid is also still very fresh. The Brazilian began the 2021-2022 season quite unhappy with the Italian. At one point he asked for an audience: he didn’t understand why he didn’t play. Ancelotti explained it to him directly, and even crudely, but also with the consideration of someone who has gone through the same thing. Marcelo ended up accepting that he had lost his place on the field, and came to enjoy what he could contribute in the locker room, as he has explained on occasion about his role in the season in which he ended up climbing to La Cibeles with the Champions League. the comebacks. After the trauma, a loving relationship remained. When Marcelo returned to Valdebebas last month for the first time after his departure, he gave Ancelotti the shirt with which he had won the Libertadores final with Fluminense.
This emotional ability of the Italian, so necessary for managing the generational change, is one of the attributes that the club valued when it renewed his contract last December. With Modric he is also displaying a mixture of respect and affection, both in private and in public, where he always refers to him as a “legend.”
After the match in Las Palmas, the Italian was especially careful when asked why the Croatian had not even warmed up that day or in the previous match, the weekend against Almería at the Bernabéu: “Luka did not warm up because. ..”, he began, and took a long pause of eight seconds. “I don’t put him in to warm up when I’m not sure he’s going to play. I have to respect him in this sense. When he is sure that he can enter the game, he will warm up.” A few days later, last Saturday, he expanded the explanation: “A young player like Arda, if he warms up and doesn’t play, nothing happens. “I can’t do it with Luka Modric, who is 39 years old, who has won five Champions Leagues, who is a legend of the club.” However, he was somewhat more lukewarm when asked if he would like the Croatian to continue at Madrid next year: “The decisions for next season have to be made by him.”
Despite the moments of greatest annoyance, which the club considers natural in a wild competitor like the Croatian, in Valdebebas they notice him quite calm: “Modric feels very well in his head. He knows what he has to do and assumes it with exemplary dignity. He adds and the locker room notices it,” says a source who sees him work every day.
The Croatian wants to compete, and wants to continue doing so at the elite level. That is one of the reasons why he decided to extend his contract with Madrid and why he has rejected the insistent offers that come to him from Saudi Arabia. And they arrive “every month,” according to sources close to the footballer.
In addition, the Eurocup this summer in Germany is on the near horizon. In the same way that he has resisted lowering himself from the highest competitive level, he has also clung to his role as captain of the Croatian national team, with which he was runner-up in the world in 2018 and third in 2022. Until then, the plan is that he continues to appear less than before, although he continues to squeeze out those minutes: this season in which the Bernabéu smells his farewell, he gives 3.23 key passes per game, double that of previous years.
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