Modric will once again be hunted down, snapped at. The 2018 Ballon d’Or might end the 10-year duopoly of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who have won the trophy five times each.
Luka Modric won a third successive Champions League and reached the World Cup final with Croatia in 2018. It was a really special year for me.
The World Cup played a crucial role in dictating the individual awards as Modric was better than both Ronaldo and Messi at the biggest stage of world football.
The last unshowy Ballon d’Or was Fabio Cannavaro in 2006, since when Xavi and Andrés Iniesta have had a podium finish. It is perhaps the best model of what Modric might face at the Luzhniki Stadium on Sunday.France will be prepared. 54 Shares.
In history, 38 forwards have won the award compared to 17 midfielders only. Kit aside, he does not appear to have any headline personal sponsors.
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Real Madrid and Croatia midfielder Luka Modric won the 2018 Ballon d'Or, becoming the first player other than Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo to claim the award in more than a decade.Modric, 33, won his third successive Champions League in May before helping Croatia to a first World Cup final.Former Brazil and AC Milan forward Kaka, in 2007, was the last player other than Messi or Ronaldo to win it.Ronaldo, who joined Juventus from Real Madrid in the summer, came second.Barcelona forward Messi finished fifth, with Atletico Madrid frontman Antoine Griezmann and PSG attacker Kylian Mbappe - both of whom won the World Cup with France - third and fourth respectively.Victory caps a stellar year for Modric, who also was named the Speaking to BBC Sport, Modric dedicated the award to all of the other players who have missed out in the 10 years dominated by Messi and Ronaldo. In Klagenfurt he was battered and kicked and bumped by Torsten Frings, Michael Ballack and Bastian Schweinsteiger, but bounced up to elude and bewitch and generally run rings around Germany’s midfield. A winner’s medal would complete a run of personal success equalled only by the Bayern Munich-West Germany cross-over of the 1970s – Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Sepp Maier and friends.Watching Modric on a good day is like being drawn into a slow-building piece of music, not something with a snappy intro or a thunder of percussion at the start; but something absorbing and rhythmical and clipped, where suddenly the parts start to chime together, the phrases to expand and repeat and find deeper melodies until you can’t imagine wanting to listen to anything else.Still, though, a Modric Ballon d’Or would be a break with recent tradition, an anti-glamour move. Right now the only real issue with just doubling up at the Luzhniki Stadium and handing the Ballon d’Or over to the world’s most elusive midfielder is that fact, should things go the other way come December, you might not get it back.
Modric described Ronaldo and Messi as "phenomenal players", adding: "To win means I did something really special on the pitch this year, that's why 2017-18 was the year for me. Otherwise, it’s goalscorers all the way. Sorry.
They have a huge depth of talent but also a real physicality. Nope. Luka Modric got the first position with 753 points, Cristiano Ronaldo was second with 476 points and Antoine Griezmann positioned third 414 points. Luka Modric has been excellent for Croatia at the World Cup so far. Small, pigeon-toed men who don’t score goals, and whose elfin on-field presence is reminiscent even now of a small boy dressed up as a witch, do not make the step up to galáctico at the world’s most glamorous club.Except for this one.
But win or lose there is a fair chance a less saleable figure might get his turn come December.Modric for the Ballon d’Or: it is a delicious prospect at a time when star players are fetishised to a bizarrely sensual degree, styled and primped and captured in constant brooding close-up.Croatia’s captain will not be the oldest outfield player as the final kicks off. The Modric supremacy: why Croatia’s talisman should win the Ballon d’Or The brilliant Croat has been the driving force behind Croatia’s run to the final. Now he deserves to dethrone Messi and Ronaldo as the finest player on the planetSport does not normally work like this.
Luka Modric won Ballon d’Or 2018. Here are the reasons why I feel Modric should win the Ballon d'Or over the likes of Leo Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mohammad Salah, and Kylian Mbappe. Monday December 03 2018. #3 Champions League glory. "This award is for all the players who probably deserved to win it and didn't. Even now Modric has become a divisive figure in his moment of triumph. “Luka Modric, you little piece of shit,” was a familiar chant among Croatia fans during the last year, a reference to Modric’s role in the corruption trial of Zdravko Mamic.Mainly Modric has had to fight those reservations about his small frame in an evermore concussive game.
It was very special." Luka Modric probably won't get Ballon d'Or recognition for the same reason Roy Keane didn't. Robert Redmond.