World Cup 2018: Luka Modric is up there with very best of ANY World Cup, he would make my all-time best XI
Former Spurs manager reveals he looked forward to watching Modric train, such was his class
THERE are ultra-fine margins that separate players at the highest level of football.
Only a few have the ability to excite time and time again.
Luka Modric is one of those.
For four years, between 2008 and 2012, I was lucky enough to have him in the Tottenham team, at a time when he was really emerging into the peak years of his career.
The Croatians are an incredible bunch and I’ve had the pleasure of coaching so many of them — Modric, Vedran Corluka, Igor Stimac, Slaven Bilic, Robert Prosinecki and Davor Suker.
All of them are classy people; respectful, dogged, skilful and dedicated. It’s something England need to be wary of tonight.
Luka was superb for me as a player.
Over the years I have seen thousands of players, hundreds and hundreds of matches.
It can all become a blur and you can get blase about it.
When I was managing Luka at Spurs, I would get excited driving into work every day just to watch him train.
He is that good, that enjoyable to watch.
Luka is up there with the very best who have played at any World Cup.
He uses his body so well, a small man but almost impossible to knock off the ball.
He glides around a pitch on those deceptively strong legs and is incredibly robust.
There’s no doubt he would make it in my all-time best XI.
At Spurs, Luka was playing wide left when I took over. And Gareth Bale was the left-back.
His job was to cut inside from the left every time. He did that for club and for country.
We took a decision to move him into central midfield and never looked back from it.
Bale was moved up to left wing and look at the pair of them now. But it wasn’t just about the obvious natural talent with Luka that impressed us at Spurs.
Around that time Chelsea were heavily in for him.
There was so much speculation, it would have turned the head of a less composed character and could have driven him mad.
But Luka came to see me and we sat down in my office. He told me the manager of Chelsea at the time, Andre Villas-Boas, was ringing him all the time, tapping him up, basically.
He was whispering in Luka’s ear — telling him that Chelsea was a better club than Tottenham; offering to more than double his wages.
He was on about £35,000 a week with us back then and Chelsea were offering around £80K per week.
Luka asked for my advice about the situation.
What else could I do but tell him how important he was for us at Spurs.
That was enough for him.
He didn’t mention another word about it, he didn’t go on strike like some would, he didn’t down tools and train poorly because his mind was elsewhere.
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There was no agitating for a move away. Tottenham’s chairman, Daniel Levy, told him, ‘Stay with us for another year and if someone comes in for you next summer, you can go’.
Luka stayed put and the next summer signed for Real Madrid.
I still love watching him play. He still has the ability to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when he gets the ball in the middle of the pitch and starts to dribble towards the opposition goal.
Hopefully, he won’t get too many opportunities to do that this evening but you cannot help but wish him every success.