Let’s get one thing straight right away. Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modric are both 39 years old. Both born in 1985. And on Sunday in Toronto, they’ll finally face each other in a World Cup knockout game for the first time. It took 23 editions of the tournament to get a matchup of two 40-something captains. That alone tells you how unusual this is.
For Modric, this is it. Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic already confirmed it’s his last World Cup. The guy has dragged a country of under four million people to a final and a third-place finish in back-to-back tournaments. He won the Ballon d’Or in 2018. He ran the midfield at the Bernabeu for 13 years. But this time, there’s no next one. He walked off the pitch against England after giving up a penalty and getting subbed within an hour. It looked like father time had finally tracked him down. Then he threw an 83rd-minute corner that Nikola Vlasic buried to beat Ghana. So maybe not.
Ronaldo’s situation is fuzzier. He keeps hinting he might play until 2030, when Portugal co-hosts. That would make him 45. Stranger things have happened with a guy who just became the first man to score in six different World Cups. But here’s the thing that hangs over everything: Ronaldo has zero World Cup knockout goals. Zero. In a career where he’s bagged 145 international goals, none of them have come in a round of 16 or beyond. He yelled “I’m back” after shredding Uzbekistan’s defense with a brace, and he’s absolutely right that he keeps proving skeptics wrong. But that missing statline is a real hole. A goal in Toronto fixes that narrative in a hurry.
Old Friends, Empty Trophies
They spent six seasons together at Real Madrid, winning four Champions Leagues. Ronaldo scored 450 goals for the club. Modric played the pass before the final pass, controlling games while Ronaldo finished them. Only 14 of Ronaldo’s goals came directly from Modric assists, but their chemistry was obvious. Real won like crazy. Ronaldo left at 33 for Juventus, then Manchester United, then Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia. Modric stayed seven more years and won two more Champions League titles. Hard to argue who made the better call there.
Modric has never beaten Ronaldo in a match. Ten times they’ve played on opposite sides, and Ronaldo’s teams won all ten. That stat is nice for Portugal fans, but it’s also the kind of streak that ends eventually. If Croatia wins, Ronaldo’s two-decade chase for World Cup glory might be over for good. If Portugal wins, Modric walks off the World Cup stage for the last time. Either way, we lose one of them after Sunday.
Both guys have played over 200 senior international matches. Only four men in history can say that. They’ve combined for 47 World Cup games. And somehow they never met in a knockout round until now. The tournament threw a quarterfinal matchup of Ronaldo vs Messi into the draw but then rerouted Portugal to Toronto with a loss to Colombia. So instead of that headline, we get this one. It’s different. It’s maybe not as flashy. But two guys born the same year, both defying every reasonable expectation about aging athletes, facing off with everything on the line? That’s a story worth watching.
Croatia starts slow every time. They were fourth in their group after one game. They finished second. Modric turns 40 in September. Ronaldo turns 40 in February. Time is running out for both of them. Just one of them gets to keep chasing more.
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