In 1985, the first-born son was born to the family of Stipe Modric and Radojki Dobuzh, who was named after his grandfather, Stipe's father, Luka. They lived in a small village called Modrici in the northeast of Zadar. Parents all day vanished at work in a textile factory, and little Luka was brought up by his grandfather, often helped him - grazing goats ... Until Croatia came to civil war.

Many villagers in a panic were hiding in the forest. Those who stayed at home helped them. Luka Modric Sr. once brought food to the hiding, and then went back home, to release on the pasture of cows and goats. But he never returned. In 2011, one of the Croatian courts held a hearing in which two members of the SAO Krajina police, a self-proclaimed Serbian autonomous province. Dorje Elich and Bogdan Gagich were involved in the killing of seven civilians. One of the witnesses who hid in the woods saw the grandfather Luka Modrica, who was going home, and after a few moments, when the man had already disappeared from his sight, he heard the sound of a driving car, the cries of a man and several shots. The next day Luka Modrica was found dead with several gunshot wounds in the back.

His grandson together with his parents fled. House Modrichey was burned to the ground.

Stipe brought his family to the south, where he lived for the next seven years in the hotel of the nowadays resort town of Zadar, which then served as a refugee home.

Father went to war, and little Luke found a way to escape from the terrible everyday life, in football. The hotel was full of children and, as the footballer later admitted, parents did their best to make them think less about the war, they did not want it to negatively affect children.

The first steps in football Modric did in the parking lot in front of the hotel. At first he did not even have a ball, and he often kicked a self-made ball of paper.

"It was a boy who spent the whole day with a ball around the parking lot of the hotel," said Zadar President Josip Bailo. "He was incredibly thin and small for his age, but it immediately showed him that he has something special. However, none of us even dreamed that one day he would grow into what he had become ".

In 1992, the guy went to school and entered the football section of the sports academy. Father saw the potential in Luka and, even without having much money, he did everything to allow the son to play football. I helped my own uncle.

The first coach of Modrica was Tomislav Bazic, who also brought up former players of the Croatian national team Giovani Roso, Sasha Belanovich and Dado Prso.

"We were afraid all the time. This I remember for sure, "the late Bazic told the Spanish television today. - "Thousands of grenades that flew from the surrounding hills in those years. Some of them fell on our training field or next to it, and we raced to get to the shelter. Then football was our salvation from reality ".

Modric often calls Bazic his "football father". Once the coach told the story that the family of Luke had so little money that the father made for his son the shields of wood. Later, Luke stated that he had shields with the image of the Brazilian Ronaldo. "Well, maybe it was someone else's shields," - said Bazic, when he was reminded of this story.

At the age of 15, Modric went to watch his favorite Hajduk, but there they did not believe him. Causes? All the same - too small, too thin. Soon Tomislav Bazic proposed a variant with the Zagreb Dynamo. And there they believed in a young football player.

When Luka turned 17, Dynamo decided that the guy needed a game practice, and he got it in Bosnia, where he acted on loan for the club Zrinski. And acted so that he received the award "The best player of the championship of Bosnia and Herzegovina". In that season, he scored 8 goals in 22 games. "If you could play in Bosnia - play anywhere," - said Modric once.

After returning to Dinamo, he was waiting for another lease, but this time in Croatia, in Inter Zaproshich. With Inter Luka took second place, while Dynamo was only 7th. Not surprisingly, before the next season with Luka signed a contract for 10 (!) Years.

He played only 3 years, after which he moved to England, in Tottenham. At that time, the 23-year-old midfielder spent more than 20 matches for the Croatian national team and played for Euro 2008. In London, Luke spent 4 seasons. At the end of his stay in the camp of "spurs" he expressed a desire to move to Chelsea, but the president of Tottenham, Daniel Levy did not agree to such a transfer.

But Levy sold Croats in Madrid Real Madrid. After the first season of the football player in Madrid, the authoritative edition Marca called his transfer the worst among all the transitions of Spain in the summer of 2012.

Five years later, in the summer of 2018, the disappointed Modric in the Luzhniki Stadium received the award to the best player of the World Cup - he managed to go out with his native Croatia to the finals, when nobody believed in her. A little earlier, he raised his fourth Champions League cup over his head. On the eve of it, he was recognized as the best player in the world.

A small, thin boy from a poor Croatian family who lost his beloved grandfather and half a child in six years and lived under the threat of being torn by a grenade that was not believed in his beloved club. On the life of Luka Modrica there were many obstacles and heavy moments, but he managed - he came to his dream.

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