By Matt Lawton
Last updated at 12:41 AM on 21st May 2011
According to the official Champions League magazine, Luka Modric started playing football with a pair of wooden shinpads that were crafted by his father.
It is a wonderful rags-to-riches image. A man with his tools, carving the pads from a tree cut down in the foothills of the Dinaric Alps. The story of a poverty-stricken Croatian family, living in a ‘small village outside Zadar’, doing their best for a young boy blessed with a gift for the beautiful game.
Only it’s not true. Not even close.
Star man: Luka Modric has matured into one of the finest midfielders in the Premier League
‘My first pair of shinpads had a picture of Ronaldo on them,’ says Modric, laughing. ‘They were these Nike ones and I loved them. I loved Ronaldo. The real Ronaldo! And I wore those shinpads for years. From when I was a little kid right up to when I started playing professionally in the Bosnian League. Ronaldo had lots of scars before I eventually gave them to someone as a present.’
To begin with, Modric had declared himself a reluctant interviewee.
‘Not because I have anything against the newspapers,’ he says, speaking fluent English. ‘I guess I’m just not that comfortable talking about myself.’
But he does appear to be one of those players who has had to listen to an awful lot of tosh about himself. That same edition of UEFA’s magazine also says his colleagues at Tottenham call him ‘The Modfather’ and ‘Moddle’.
‘Er, no, they don’t,’ he says. ‘They call me Luka.’
This, however, is not something that particularly worries Modric. There is a shrug of the shoulders. It’s not a big deal. He says only one thing bothers him and it is when people doubt his ability; question whether he is too slight, too small, something of a lightweight.
Modfather: Modric is certainly happy at Tottenham, but contrary to popular belief, he is not known as The Modfathe
Having noted that Modric had signed for Tottenham a few months before some fine performances at Euro 2008, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger expressed such doubts about his ability to cope with the physical demands of the Barclays Premier League.
‘I don’t think he was the only one who questioned whether I could make it in a hard league like England,’ he says. ‘My whole career, when I was in Croatia, people questioned me, saying I wouldn’t make it, that I wasn’t good enough because I wasn’t big and strong.
‘But you have to understand something about Croatian people. After everything that has happened, after the war, we are stronger, tougher. What we’ve been through was not easy (Modric lost his grandfather). The war made us stronger. We are not easy people to break. It’s hard to break us. And there is a determination to show that. To show that we can succeed.
‘My father fought for me to play football. He never had to make me shinpads but it was a lot of money to send to me to a soccer school. And to provide boots and things. He still works in the military, as an aircraft technician. He always tried to find ways to support me with my football.
‘So when people said I wouldn’t be able to cope in the Premier League it just gave me an extra incentive. I wanted to prove them wrong and now, I think, they have to admit they were wrong.’
Rough and tumble: Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger expressed concerns about how Modric would cope in the Premier League
They most certainly do. Modric has been one of the players of the season and only recently on these pages the Footballer of the Year, Scott Parker, declared him the toughest opponent he had faced.
‘That’s always nice to hear from another professional,’ says Modric, who then lists Parker among the toughest opponents he has encountered along with Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Real Madrid’s Xabi Alonso.
He has become quite the central midfielder. Strong, quick, creative. A player with two great feet and marvellous vision. Jamie Redknapp sees him as the perfect replacement for Paul Scholes at Manchester United, only to add that his father, Harry, has no intention of selling him.
New Scholes: Modric has been touted as the replacement at United for their ageing midfield general
But the guy sitting opposite me in a hospitality box at White Hart Lane does appear to possess a particularly slender frame. He is wiry rather than muscular, his rather nice Rolex almost looking too big for his wrist. Does he ever work out?
'I remember my first appearance for Tottenham. There was this, it’s hard to explain, this noise in my ears. Like the “whoosh” of things going past you at speed'
‘Not really,’ he says with a smile. ‘I decided one time that I would spend three months in the gym but after a month I stopped. It wasn’t for me. I would rather just play football.’
He says his strength is in his legs. In the particularly meaty calves he keeps concealed under his tracksuit bottoms.
‘My father is strong in his legs and I think I get that from him,’ he says. ‘I am stronger there than in my upper body but that is what gives me a low centre of gravity. It makes it harder for opponents to get me off the ball.
‘But I’d also say that football is about so much more than power and size. When I was a kid and I was smaller than everyone else, it was harder. The big kids were always the best players. But once everyone grows up it comes down to talent. All the questions I had to answer have now stopped.’
He does admit to finding it difficult when he first arrived in the Premier League. But not for the reasons that most had alluded to.
‘I’d already played in the Bosnian League and, while the quality of the football isn’t as high, it’s tough physically,’ he says. ‘No, it was the pace of the game that caught me by surprise here. I remember my first appearance for Tottenham. I think it was against Middlesbrough and we lost. There was this, it’s hard to explain, this noise in my ears. Like the “whoosh” of things going past you at speed. You know what I mean?
‘I was out there thinking: “Wow, what’s this?” I realised I had to change. Think quicker, play quicker, move on the ball quicker. Players are all over you when you receive the ball here. You have to have the solution before the ball has come to you.
Fast pace: Modric admits to being stunned by quite how quick the action is in England's top flight
‘It was a problem at the beginning but now it’s normal. In the beginning, for the first couple of months, everything was bad. Juande (Ramos) was coach and we were getting bad results. But then things started to settle down. Harry came in and put me out on the left, which gave me more freedom behind the striker. I started to play better and better. I grew in confidence.
‘Then last season the manager decided to put me in the middle. I think it was against Chelsea or Arsenal, if I’m not wrong. No, it was Stoke. We beat them and I played really well in that position. Then we played Chelsea and Arsenal and then Man City away, when we qualified for the Champions League.
'I think the manager was happy with the way I had played there and I told the manager I thought that position suited me best. I have always played there for Croatia and I didn’t have a problem being there.’
The manager is extremely happy with Modric. Happy with the guy who is always first on the training pitch, works hard, lives a quiet family life and focuses only on football beyond that family.
Redknapp even likes him because he knows he can talk to him about football. If the Tottenham manager wants to rave about the Spanish game he has seen the previous night, he knows Modric will be among those who has seen it.
Home boy: Despite loving life in London, Modric still keeps strong contact with the family members he left in Croatia
‘I’m not interested in things away from my family and football,’ he says. ‘Not a day goes by when I don’t speak to my parents and my two sisters back home and I only ever try to do the best I can on the football pitch. I’m not a model or something. I am a football player.’
He does sound alarmingly like former Tottenham player David Ginola, but this guy really means it.
‘I’m a family man,’ he says. ‘I have a son. I’m enjoying my life. London is an amazing city. I enjoy it every day. I like all the tourist stuff in London. You can see a lot of things here. It’s a beautiful, beautiful city. Just great.
‘And when I can, when I’m at home, I do like to watch football. Not as much as I used to but enough. I like to watch the league in Spain. If my friends from the national team in Croatia are playing, I like to watch them.
Real deal: Having knocked Spurs out, Modric was disappointed with the way Real Madrid played in the match with Barcelona
‘I watched the semi-final between Real Madrid and Barcelona. For me, Barcelona deserved to go through. Real Madrid didn’t play well, They didn’t play the way they played against us in the quarter-final.
‘How they played against Barcelona is not the way Real Madrid need to play. They are one of the biggest clubs in the world and they need to play differently. They beat them in the cup a week earlier playing better football. They were just worried about the referee in the semi and that is not good. They should have played better. That’s my opinion.’
I ask him about his fine grasp of English. Was he a good student at school?
‘I was,’ he says. ‘Not excellent, but good. I was always very well behaved. No, I was, really. It was the way my family raised me.’
They also raised him to be loyal and it is interesting to hear him discuss his future: the question of whether he will remain at Tottenham when the side will not be in the Champions League next season.
‘It’s going to be hard,’ he says. ‘For the first time in the Champions League we did a great job and we were involved in some great games. It’s going to be hard watching the Champions League on TV next season.
Fifth-place fight: Tottenham's season has fallen away and they face a fight for a European place
‘But we need to focus on qualifying for next season. If it hadn’t been for the problems we had in the last two-and-a-half months we could have easily been in the top two or three in the Premier League. We had a bad run. It happens in football. You have bad days. But we had some good days, too. In the Premier League and the Champions League.
'I can’t explain what went wrong. We just couldn’t kill teams off. Maybe, because we had some injuries too, the players got tired from playing all those big games.’
So does he intend to stick around?
‘I think so,’ he says. ‘You can’t predict things in football because anything can happen. But I am enjoying it here. The fans are amazing, the club is amazing. There are Croatians here. I really do enjoy it here.
‘I’m not missing anything. I think this club can achieve a lot of great things. I think we can challenge for the Premier League and the cups. Like I said, you never know what is going to happen. You can say you are staying and then you leave. But I am happy here and I am not thinking about leaving.’
Superstar: Brazilian Ronaldo was the man Modric looked up to as a youngster
He signed a contract last year that runs until 2016. It’s long, but not as long as the 10-year contract he signed at Dinamo Zagreb.
‘A lot of people asked me why I did that,’ he says ‘They couldn’t believe it. But the club came to me and offered the 10 years and I thought, “Yeah, why not?” I love the club, so I signed. I spoke with my family and my agent beforehand and I knew I would not stay for 10 years.
‘But I wanted to sign it to show I was not looking to leave, while at the same time giving them some protection when it eventually came to me leaving. That was the biggest reason I signed it, because it was best for the club.
‘I think it is important in football to make a commitment to a club. I think the relationship with the club is important. That’s my view on these things and that is why I have signed a long contract here, too. My only motivation is to enjoy my football. Not the money.’
As long as he’s got enough for a pair of old R9 shinpads.
Modric joined supporters of the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity at White Hart Lane for a match involving Netherhall School and the Parkside Federation of schools organised by Tottenham sponsors Autonomy
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1389293/Luka-Modric-They-said-small-hard-work-Tottenhams-star.html#ixzz1Mx1wUWML
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