Luka Modric, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lionel Messi: The Legacy of International Football
Can you remember what you were doing on 1 March 2006?
You might have been at Anfield, watching England edge Uruguay 2-1. Maybe you were at Hampden Park as Switzerland put three past Scotland. Or, without knowing it, you could have been witnessing the quiet birth of one of modern football’s great international careers.
That night, Luka Modric made his debut for Croatia. They beat Argentina 3-2. Lionel Messi scored his first international goal. In the same evening’s swirl of friendlies, Cristiano Ronaldo struck twice in a 3-0 win for Portugal against Saudi Arabia, already a superstar, nowhere near the end, and with no idea he would one day live and work in that very country.
Since then, Messi and Ronaldo have hoarded headlines, trophies and arguments in bars across the world. Modric has moved differently, almost in the shadows. Metronomic rather than explosive. Passing rather than finishing. Less billboard, more backbone. But always there. Always at the top.
Now, deep into the 21st century, the three of them sit in a tiny, rarefied club. Only four men in history have reached 200 caps for their country. Ronaldo is one. Modric is another. Messi, of course, makes three. The fourth? That’s for the purists to dig out, a trivia question tucked inside an era.
On this latest chapter, Ronaldo, 41, and Modric, 40, are set to extend their remarkable journeys again. When Portugal face Croatia in the last 32 of the World Cup, Ronaldo will step out for his 232nd cap, Modric for his 202nd. Two men in their forties, still carrying nations on their backs, still refusing to let go.
It may be the last time they share a pitch. If it is, the symmetry feels fitting. Their careers have overlapped for almost two decades, as rivals, as teammates, as measuring sticks for one another. They have grown old in the same spotlight.
Their loyalty to international football stands out. By the time Modric first pulled on the Croatia shirt in 2006, Ronaldo already had 29 caps. More than 20 years later, that gap has only widened by one. The numbers tell their own story: whenever their countries called, they turned up. Friendly or final, qualifier or tournament, they kept answering.
Their paths first crossed properly in England in 2008‑09. Modric was the slight, clever newcomer at Tottenham. Ronaldo, the reigning force at Manchester United. In that season’s Carling Cup final, both played the full 120 minutes, both earning a solid rating of 7, before United beat Spurs on penalties. It was a domestic cup final, but it felt like a glimpse of something larger: two careers about to collide on a bigger stage.
Soon, they did. By the 2010-11 season, Ronaldo was in Spain, the centrepiece at Real Madrid. Modric was still at Spurs when they met in the Champions League quarter-finals. Madrid went through, as they so often would in the years to come, and Modric would not be on the wrong side of that power for long.
Once Modric joined Real Madrid, the partnership truly took shape. Across six seasons together at the Bernabéu, they dominated Europe. Four Champions League titles. Semi-finals in the other two campaigns. Season after season, Modric threaded the passes and controlled the rhythm while Ronaldo finished moves with brutal finality.
If there was a single image that captured their shared peak, it came in Cardiff in 2017. Juventus were threatening a comeback in the Champions League final when Modric darted into the right channel and cut the ball back. Ronaldo met it, as he so often did, and slammed Madrid 3-1 up. The goal killed the contest and crystallised the partnership: the brain and the blade, working in perfect sync on the biggest stage.
By then, their connection had become routine. Across 222 matches together, Modric became the central midfielder Ronaldo played alongside more than any other. That stat, buried beneath all the goals and medals, says plenty. When Ronaldo needed control behind him, Modric was there. When Modric needed someone to finish his work, Ronaldo obliged.
Now they approach another knockout tie, this time on opposite sides again, with the clock very much in view. Two veterans, two centurions twice over, still writing chapters when most of their peers have long since closed the book.
At some point, the caps will stop piling up. One day, the call from the national team will no longer come. Until then, nights like this remain: Ronaldo in Portugal’s red, Modric in Croatia’s checks, facing each other once more, perhaps for the last time, with another slice of history on the line.
