It is the best news that Madrid fans could read right now, apart from tomorrow’s league match at the Bernabéu and the dream comeback against Guardiola’s City (next Wednesday, 9:00 p.m.). Luka Modric, 36 years old, has already agreed with the club to renew his contract until 2023. In addition, and as AS was able to learn, after the meeting recently held between both parties, the option of giving him one more year was secured according to some parameters of Croatian performance.
That is to say, if Luka were to sign a course next season with a performance similar to the current one, more brilliant impossible (38 games, 3 goals, 9 assists), Modric would automatically continue another year, until 2024. Even in that closed agreement between player and club, the possibility has been foreseen that when Modric decides to hang up his boots (“as long as my physique gives me, I wouldn’t mind playing until I’m 40 years old”, he recently stated in Diario AS after announcing his involvement with the sporting social network Sportening) becomes part of the sports management structure in the responsibility that best suits his taste and his commitment, given that he is a great fan and analyst of international football.
An agreement that leaves the white 10 alone, whose dream was to continue playing here in the future and brand new Bernabéu in such a special year as the captain with Croatia at the World Cup in Qatar this coming fall. He still feels full of energy and motivation. For this reason, he will see his desire to continue developing his professional career at the Bernabéu “until his body holds out” fulfilled.
AS can assure you that Modric’s great professional dream is to retire from active football in Madrid. That is why he continues to take care of himself in an almost fanatical way, to the point of being a benchmark for players like Camavinga or Fede Valverde, who are struggling to find a place in that midfield of the time that the Croatian has completed and completes with Casemiro and Kroos.
The opinion of Ancelotti (for the Italian, Luka is irreplaceable at the moment) and the Bernabéu have greatly influenced the club’s decision, given that the standing ovations and chants chanting his name have been common in the big games this season ( Atletico, PSG, Chelsea…).
Modric’s threat to play for Madrid
The fact is that Modric, like someone who does not want the thing, has already accumulated 430 games with the white shirt since he signed in 2012 for 35 million euros, thanks to the pressure exerted by José Mourinho to hire him from Tottenham. In the end, that price has been a bargain for a starting player in the four Champions Leagues won from 2014 to 2018 and who already has 430 games, 31 goals and 70 assists in his madridista backpack. Few people know the effort the Croatian made to come to Madrid.
Daniel Levy, president of the London club, had promised him since the summer of 2011 that if Madrid’s interest was reiterated in 2012, he would sell him so that he could go to the team of his dreams. But the time came and by not keeping his word, Modric decided to train alone until the president fulfilled what he said. André Villas-Boas, Portuguese coach of the Spurs, spoke with him and told him that he understood him even if it was a breakdown for his sports project. Modric, only 26 years old, came to consider a terrible dilemma: “Either you let me go to Madrid now or I leave football.”
Now, his renewal will be received with joy in the Valdebebas locker room, where Luka has a growing ascendancy. Even more so after the departure of Sergio Ramos to PSG last summer, given that Modric now has that leadership that the camero exercised, but with a much more serene profile and dialogue with his fellow travelers. Luka is loved in the booth, even more so in the stands and on the main floor of the Bernabéu. You can not ask for more. Modric forever.