The small, skinny teenage midfielder was protective of his flowing locks, but his coach, Romeo Jozak, was freaking out. "Any pass he was going to do, it was [flick of the hair]. We even had a couple of fights. Well, I was the coach and I had the last word, so he eventually cut that hair!" Jozak recalls with a smile. "Of course, I didn't know he was going to become the Luka Modric down the road."
Modric, now 40, has regrown those locks and that small, skinny frame has carried him to six Champions League titles with Real Madrid and a Ballon d'Or. He captained Croatia to a World Cup final in 2018, third place four years ago, and will lead his side into their 2026 opener against England on Wednesday (21:00 BST).
“Luka Modric, aged 40, leads Croatia against England in their 2026 World Cup opener.”
Modric's rise to superstardom — from a child displaced by war to a national icon approaching 200 caps for Croatia — is an underdog story synonymous with a country that continuously defies the footballing odds. His childhood was shaped by war. He is one of the few players in the current squad who lived through a conflict that ran until 1995 after Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
He was six when his grandfather, Luka, was killed by Serbian forces close to his home near the Velebit mountains, where he would herd goats. The family home was burned and Modric's father went to war. The youngster was forced to move to Zadar with his family, living as refugees in hotels where he would play football with other children displaced by the fighting.
The Croatia national team, meanwhile, were admitted by Fifa in 1992, then Uefa in 1993, meaning they missed out on qualification for the 1994 World Cup. A star-studded cast including Zvonimir Boban, Davor Suker and Robert Prosinecki, who all previously represented a strong Yugoslavia side, reached the quarter-finals at Euro 96 and finished third at the World Cup in France two years later, beating Germany and the Netherlands.
The conflict, Jozak says, played a role in the players' drive and character, but there was, and remains, pride in representing a country of less than four million people and a confirmation in their ability from outperforming bigger nations. "We don't use it…" Jozak says, trailing off, but the implication is clear: Croatia's footballing success is built on resilience and defiance.
Modric, Croatia's most successful ever footballer, has made 198 caps since his debut in 2006. Jozak, who played a key role in the development of the nation's top talent, says of Modric: "He did say 'do you know you and the army [Modric spent a year doing national service] are the only ones that cut my hair'. There's a respect and I feel it whenever we see each other, even though he's now the superstar."
As Modric prepares to lead his side against England on Wednesday, the story of the child displaced by war who defied the odds to become a global footballing icon continues. For Croatia, a nation of less than four million, the defiance never ends.