Although Luka Modric wasn't in the starting lineup against Atletico Madrid on Tuesday night in the first leg of the Champions League Round of 16, the Croatian legend certainly made his impact felt for Real Madrid; they likely would not have successfully closed out a vital 2-1 home victory without him.
Modric came into the match in the 62nd minute for one of the team's worst performing players, Eduardo Camavinga, and he proved to be a considerable upgrade on the struggling Frenchman, combining well with two of the game's top performers, Aurelien Tchouameni and Brahim Diaz, to win the midfield battle against a hard-nosed Atletico Madrid.
There are so many ways that Modric stands out for Real Madrid. He completed all 50 of his 50 pass attempts as per WhoScored, which is just a ludicrous output in only 28 minutes of action, and he created two chances with an interception and a foul drawn for good measure to fill out his stat sheet.
Luka Modric has a poise that can't be replicated
But to me, what mattered the most was Modric's ability to drop deep, receive the ball from the center backs under any kind of pressure, and get the ball out of dodge, so to speak, without every making a mistake. That kind of poise, feel for the game, and bravery don't show up in the stat sheet, but you can hardly find many players who are capable of playing this way - or even willing to - against a foe like Atletico Madrid with their style of play.
Modric has always been vital in Champions League knockout stages and in big rivalry games against opponents who face Real Madrid with a lot of hate. Against these kinds of teams, your box-to-box midifelders need to match their heart in the challenges but also need to have the presence of mind to still be able to think through solutions and avoid making mistakes when they are in a proverbial war zone.
Of course, Modric has always done this for more than a decade now, but, in 2025, it's wild to see him still doing it at nearly the same level as he approaches the age of 40. And watching how Real Madrid play without him in these big matches helps us avoid taking him for granted, bringing up the sobering reality that, as with Toni Kroos, finding someone who can do all this against these types of opponents will be just about impossible.
Nobody plays like Luka Modric, and for as talented as players like Dani Ceballos and Eduardo Camavinga are, Cama's performance against Atleti in juxtaposition to Modric's 30-minute masterclass was a stark reminder that Modric's understanding, intelligence, and quality are rare and that those traits mean the difference between victory and defeat in these fine-margin games.