Luka Modric has never been more important to Real Madrid

The 35-year-old is out of contract at the end of the season, but is expected to stay at Real Madrid where he has never been more influential.

Had Luka Modric’s Real Madrid contract been up for renewal 12 months earlier, there’s a good chance the Croatian would have left the Santiago Bernabeu by now. While Los Blancos finished top of the pile in La Liga last term, Modric was a faded force. He appeared to be coming to the end of his cycle at the club.

Now, though, Modric is in the form of his life at 35 years old. The Croatian has never been more important to Real Madrid and so there’s an urgency at the club to make sure the midfielder stays for at least another season. Talks are well under way with a conclusion expected to be reached soon.

"We want the situation to be sorted as quickly as possible," Zinedine Zidane recently explained when asked to provide an update on the ongoing discussions between Modric and Real Madrid. "It’s in everyone's interests, it would be good for everyone, so hopefully it can be sorted out quickly."

Zidane is right to be anxious about Modric’s future. The Croatian is Real Madrid’s creator-in-chief. It is primarily up to him to make things happen through the middle of the pitch for the Spanish champions. Sergio Ramos might be Real Madrid’s beating heart as their spiritual leader, but Modric is their brain.

2018 saw Modric break Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s decade-long duopoly on the Ballon d’Or by being named the best soccer player in the world. He won this accolade on the back of his impressive performances for Croatia at the World Cup that year. In a Real Madrid shirt, though, 2018 was not a vintage year for Modric.

He is now in better form than he was when he won the Ballon d’Or. Modric might not be able to play every single game in every single competition like he could only a few years ago, but his intelligence and positional awareness gives him a better chance than most of maintaining his physicality levels well into his 30s.

Modric is the perfect creative midfielder. He plays in a hybrid position that is somewhere between a number eight and a number 10. At times he drops into areas of the pitch normally associated with a number six. This gives him space to drive into, which he does with surprising physicality for someone of his diminutive stature. It’s certainly not easy to knock Modric off the ball.

When Modric finds himself in the final third, he very rarely makes the wrong decision. His vision is clearer than anyone else’s in the Santiago Bernabeu dressing room and he has the passing capacity to almost always play the right ball, whether it’s a pass around the corner or a diagonal 40-yard pass from deep.

Of course, the system support around Modric at Real Madrid is one of the best in the game. The midfield trio of Casemiro, Toni Kroos and Modric is one of the most accomplished, most balanced European soccer has ever seen. At this point, given all they have achieved, Real Madrid’s central three are on a comparable level to Sergio Busquets, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta.

Nonetheless, Modric is the most influential of the trio. Without him, Real Madrid don’t just lack creativity. They lack intensity and drive. This was demonstrated in Real Madrid’s shock Copa del Rey defeat to third tier Alcoyano, when Zidane’s side missed Modric’s influence even against lower league opposition.

Martin Odegaard was recalled early from a two-year loan spell at Real Sociedad having shown enough to convince Zidane he could be a long-term successor to Modric. The idea was that the Norwegian would be phased into the Real Madrid lineup to ease their reliance on Modric. This, however, failed to materialise, with Odegaard joining Arsenal on loan this week.

Zidane still has some answers to provide on how he plans to transition Real Madrid into a new generation without Modric in the team, but for the time being the Frenchman is right to build his side around the former Tottenham Hotspur man. He would be foolish not to such is the level the 35-year-old is operating at right now.

Real Madrid fans once voted Modric as the worst signing in the club’s history, but he has since become a giant of the Santiago Bernabeu outfit. His legendary status has already been validated, as a multiple European champion and Ballon d’Or winner, but what we are seeing from Modric this season is adding even more sparkle to that status.