Sorry, but the world's best my arse. Modric has gone from being slightly underrated in years past, to now being thoroughly overrated. This has probably been his worst years in Real Madrid other than that first season. Real have struggled throughout all of 2018.
Let me just remind you of their spring. They went out against Leganés early in the Copa. They kept losing terrain to us throughout the league campaign, eventually finishing third almost 20 points off the top. In the Champions League, they nearly bottled their 3-0 lead against Juventus and was saved by a late penalty in a match where Juve dominated in midfield and completely overran the defensively weak Modric-Kroos partnership, which has been a recurring theme for Real's 2018.
Fast forward to the World Cup, where the Croatian midfield is all over the place in their first match against Nigeria. Other than converting a penalty, Modric - and Rakitic too - looked lost in that match, and were completely overrun by the aggressiveness of the Nigerians on numerous occasions. Brozovic comes in against Argentina and completely changes the outlook of that midfield, which goes on to be a stable and solid foundation for Croatia for the rest of the tournament. But bear in mind that they looked incredibly weak and feeble without Brozovic in that first match.
After the World Cup, the downwards trend for Madrid and Modric has nothing but continued. Since the World Cup final, Modric has lost or drawn more than he has won with Croatia and Real Madrid. His goalscore in that period is exactly 0. 36 goals for, 36 goals against. For a central midfielder, that supposedly is not just the heart but also the brain of the team, that is an awful record. And it honestly doesn't get much better if you look at the entire year. In 2018 Modric has won 53% of the matches he has played. That is a horrible win percentage. For reference, José Mourinho currently has a win percentage of 59% with United, and he is the laughing stock of the entire world. As far as the goalscore goes, Modric is at 111-79 for the year. Yes, if you have played Modric in your midfield in 2018, you have conceded 79 goals. Now, I know that he cannot do it all by himself, but it underlines that he is "bossing" and "controlling" absolutely null and nothing from his position in midfield.
Real Madrid has looked weak in midfield for all of 2018. Croatia looked weak in midfield until Brozovic was thrown in the mix, and this also includes their friendlies prior to the World Cup by the way.
Modric does simply not deserve this. He is not the best in the world and he has not had the best 2018 in the world of football. To be honest, at the moment I wouldn't even put Modric in a top 10. He's been consistently getting worse over the past year and a half or so. That doesn't mean that he's bad by any means. He isn't. He's still very good. But he's nowhere near a guy like Leo.
It's a bad joke, in all honesty. A really, really bad joke and the footballing community should be ashamed. Putting Messi as the fifth best is like putting Sagan as the eight best cyclist or LeBron as the sixth best basketballplayer. Absolutely ludicrous.
