There was one name that Luka Modric specifically wanted to mention in the hour of his Champions League triumph with Real Madrid: Tomislav Basic. Speaking to Croatian reporters after lifting the trophy in Lisbon, he dedicated the win to the man who has had the most profound influence on his career; the man who believed in him even when his own faith faltered.
Basic was one of Modric's early coaches and the player used to call him his second father. When Basic, 77, died in February, Modric left Madrid three days before their last 16 match against Schalke to attend his mentor's funeral.
- Holiga: Flood, sweat and tears
- Croatia: 32 in 32
As the war in Croatia broke out in the early 1990s, Modric's family relocated to the coastal city of Zadar. They had little choice as the surrounding area -- including their home village of Zaton Obrovacki -- had been captured by local Serbs, aided by the Yugoslav Army and nationalist volunteers from Serbia. The player's grandfather, after whom he was named, had been murdered in cold blood while watching over his cattle.
So the Modric family lived in bleak refugee hotels, just trying to make it through the day as sirens and bombing interfered with every aspect of normal life. But Luka, only six-years-old at the time, was too little to understand what was going on. "When you are a kid, you don't think about the war or about the suffering and problems," he once said. "I had a nice childhood, even though I grew up in hotels."
A lot of football that Modric played in those years was by himself. He'd smash the ball into a concrete wall, control the rebound with minimum touch, then quickly turn around and run the other way with it.
In a Spanish documentary about Luka Modric's early days, NK Zadar's chairman Josip Bajlo recalled: "We were told about this boy who was kicking the ball around the hotel parking lot all day. He was small and malnourished but had that something special in him. However, none of us could have dreamed that one day he'll become the player he is now."
Basic was among those who saw potential in the skinny, light-haired kid. First, he watched him from afar as Modric started playing in Zadar's youth ranks and Basic observed how his primary concern was to keep the ball and avoid being fouled by larger kids. He was always the smallest among them.
He noticed how Luka moved towards the ball to receive the pass and controlled it with a single touch, before making a half-turn to create space or evade a challenge. These are the elements you can see in his style even today, honed on that parking lot.
In his early teenage years, Modric was rejected by Hajduk Split -- the club he supported as a kid -- on the grounds of him being too small and weak. He was so disappointed that he contemplated quitting football altogether. But Basic, considered a coaching maverick in Zadar, took him under his wing and convinced him to carry on. He worked with him individually, built his confidence and eventually negotiated his move to Dinamo Zagreb, Hajduk's arch rivals.
On a number of later occasions, Modric said that coach Basic had a key role in his development. Years later, Modric called his mentor the day after signing for Real Madrid. I talked to Basic then and he told me that he didn't have any doubts in Luka becoming a huge success at the Bernabeu. "He will assert himself as leader," Basic said. "It may take some time, but Luka Modric will become the key player for Real Madrid. I know this."
And so he did. Though Modric didn't have the best of games in Lisbon, he assisted Sergio Ramos for the leveller that took the final to extra-time. Later, as he celebrated the 4-1 win on the pitch with his teammates, he remembered his humble beginnings.
"In one moment, images from my entire career started flashing before my eyes," Modric told the Sportske Novosti daily newspaper. "I hugged my son Ivano next to the Champions League trophy and thought about the happiness I'm living -- the happiness that was conceived in Zadar."
Croatia manager Niko Kovac gave Modric a few days off. The player will only join his national team this Saturday, when they play a friendly match against Mali. "The title I won will only give me additional strength and motivation to play well at the World Cup," he said.
It won't be his first as he was in Croatia squad for the 2006 tournament, then merely a 20-year-old. Much more will be expected of him now -- but if you know Modric's character, you can be certain that for him, expectations are always a challenge and not a weight.
He has been like that ever since Tomislav Basic made him as a player.