Luka Modric caused a stir on Wednesday night.
The Croatia captain spoke to ITV after the World Cup semi-final victory over England, and said that elements of the English media need to be “more humble and respect their opponents more.”
“People were talking – English journalists, pundits from television,” the Real Madrid midfielder said.
“They underestimated Croatia tonight and that was a huge mistake. All these words from them we take, we were reading and we were saying, ‘OK, today we will see who will be tired.'”
It’s unclear who in particular Modric was referring to, but there were plenty of pundits predicting an England victory, and it appears their words reached the Croatian camp.
"They underestimated Croatia tonight and that was a huge mistake" #CROENG #WorldCup https://t.co/FSa1AOfaUy
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) July 11, 2018
However, Gary Neville has dismissed any suggestion that Modric was motivated by comments made by some within the English media. “I don’t believe it for one second,” Neville said when asked about the comments on ITV on Saturday afternoon.
“I think he’s come out after the game having won and thought, ‘I’m going to have a dig.’ He’s in a position to do that and he’s a great player but I don’t think for any minute of that game he was ever thinking about the English media… about what any pundit had said. Why would you? No player ever thinks like that during a game.”
Firstly, Gary didn’t expand on why Modric decided to have “a dig.” According to Neville, he just decided to have a go at England. That’s it. No other reason than he wanted to take aim at England and elements of their media. He completely dismissed Modric’s motivation for making those comments.
Maybe during the match, Modric wasn’t thinking about what the English press and pundits had said. But he and the Croatia team could have heard the predictions before the game. They could very easily have heard that Rio Ferdinand confidently predicted a 3-0 win for England.
It’s also possible that they didn’t fully grasp that the “It’s coming home” movement was originally meant as a joke. The same way that many England fans didn’t get that some of Roy Keane’s comments on ITV on Wednesday night were made tongue-in-cheek.
https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1017368628671500288
Modric said he and his teammates gained extra motivation from the comments of some within the English media, and who are we to doubt him? He wouldn’t be the first professional athlete to be motivated by something like this and certainly not the last.
However, Neville completely dismissed any suggestion that Modric could have been motivated by the confident predictions from elements of the English media.
“The fact that we made a mistake for the second goal or that Mandzukic was alive and John Stones wasn’t was nothing to do with the English media,” Neville said.
“They’re just moments in football that happen. He’s played for Real Madrid for the last seven or eight years. Imagine the amount of critical things that will have been said about Real Madrid?”
You can watch Neville here:
