The Parking Lot and the Orchard

The summer of 1992, I was playing war games in a fruit orchard. Luka Modrić was living through a real one.

I remember spending every minute of that summer with my best friend, Benjamin. The streets were scorching, the asphalt dancing in waves wherever we looked. We spent most afternoons in a cool room in front of the TV, watching the Barcelona Olympics with great interest. To this day, I can still hear the Olympic broadcast’s theme song, Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé singing together: “Barcelona… Barcelona.”

When the weather allowed, we loved playing in the huge garden full of fruit trees. As we devoured the sweet fruit, we made sure to discuss how Barcelona had just won the European Cup, or how the Danish national team — called back from the beach — had won the European Championship right before the Olympics. We played a lot too. Like proper eight-year-olds, out came the toy guns and rifles. Sometimes we shot at each other, sometimes we fought imaginary enemies, sometimes we carried out missions as members of an elite squad. On some missions, Benji’s German cousin Franz joined us — he was spending a few weeks in our tiny village. One day the three of us set out on a mission, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

But then, from the distance, we heard explosions.

“Get down!” I shouted, and Benji and I disappeared into the tall grass.

Franz just stood there with his mouth open, looking at us desperately.

“It’s just the war in Yugoslavia, don’t worry about it!” Benji said as he pulled Franz down into the grass with us.

Honestly, I understood Franz’s reaction somewhere deep down, because we’d heard the explosions many times before, but they’d never felt this close.

At that moment, fighter jets flew over our heads. My mouth went dry, my heart pounded wildly.

“We’ve got air support, move forward!” Benji shouted, jumping up and starting to run.

I lay paralyzed in the grass for a moment, but then I set off after Benji. While running, I grabbed Franz by the shoulder and pulled him up from the grass. Poor guy — I don’t think he understood how Benji and I could play so freely with a war within earshot.

In the middle of this war, a future star of Croatian and world football began playing: Luka Modrić. While we were shooting at our enemies with toy guns — roles played by stray dogs and yard cats — Serbian soldiers killed Modrić’s grandfather, whom he was named after and with whom he’d spent so much time, in his own home, which they then burned to the ground.

While we retreated to the cool room after our exhausting battle to watch the Olympics with lemonade in hand, Modrić’s family moved into a hotel room… next to another family. They lived there for seven years — the hotel functioned as a refugee camp in Zadar.

Luka is only a year younger than me. When Benji and I were playing war in the neighboring country, maybe he could have played with us, but around him real guns fired, real grenades exploded. Our game was his reality.

Young Modrić started kicking the ball in the Zadar hotel parking lot. In the distance, bombs exploded. He often smelled the sharp scent of gunpowder in the air. While his parents fought to survive, Luka tried to find safety in football. He made many friends in the camp who also wanted to escape far from the sound of rockets. Together they imagined stepping onto the pitch in the world’s most famous stadiums. Just as our battlefield was the fragrant orchard, the hotel parking lot was Modrić’s Old Trafford, its wall his Bernabéu.

Modrić kept kicking that ball with such determination that one day it bounced all the way to Zagreb, and Luka Modrić found himself at one of Croatia’s most prestigious clubs in the capital. Of course, the ball bounced a few more times before that — for example, in the city of Split, home to Croatia’s other popular club, Hajduk Split. In Split, however, they found the young footballer too small and weak and sent him away. But Modrić didn’t give up. He worked even harder. So hard that Dinamo Zagreb offered him a ten-year contract. By then, the war had long since ended. Machine guns no longer rattled. Modrić’s family could move home. With his earnings from Zagreb, Luka bought them a house in Zadar, not far from where he was born and from where they’d had to flee.

By the time I became an adult, I no longer played war games in the garden. Since then, I’ve looked at dogs more as friends than enemies. Benji and I still discuss the weekend’s matches several times a week, though it’s harder for us to watch games together now. By the time Modrić became a key player and fan favorite at Dinamo Zagreb, we’d noticed his name too, but it would be an exaggeration to say we became Zagreb supporters. Thanks to his outstanding performance, not just us but the big European clubs also took notice. After three consecutive Croatian championship titles, Modrić moved to London, to Tottenham Hotspur, for £16.5 million. That’s when I looked into the Croatian footballer more closely. After all, he’d signed with one of my beloved team’s ancient rivals — I needed to know who he really was.

Around that time, my first serious job at a local television station thanked me for my services. Thanks to the 2008 global financial crisis, many were laid off, and they started with the young ones, the beginners. I was among them, and I saw my future as hopeless. I’ll admit honestly, for weeks, maybe months, I was paralyzed. I had no idea about my future. I basically just stared at the TV with beer in hand, watching football matches. The sink was always full, the fridge empty. The sounds of nature filtering in from outside, which had previously calmed me, now felt more like noise. Sometimes I didn’t even feel like showering, though I needed it — my clothes were usually grease-stained from fast food. But I wasn’t going anywhere, I thought, these things don’t matter. I didn’t even call Benji much.

I watched Modrić’s career in England start with difficulty due to a knee injury. Like the Split club’s leadership, many in England criticized him for his physical attributes, but I was sure that for Luka Modrić, this meant motivation, because if anyone knew what it meant not to give up, it was him. In the hotel parking lot, he didn’t learn to win — he learned perseverance. In the Premier League, this wasn’t a virtue but a basic requirement. You couldn’t quit at halftime here. No footballer could imagine a tougher battlefield.

If someone whose childhood was taken by war could still succeed in the world’s toughest league, then I couldn’t give up on myself either. I sent my CV to a few places.

Shortly after Modrić arrived in London, his team got a new coach in the form of Harry Redknapp, who began building the London club around the Croatian midfielder. Alongside the criticism, his coach’s support meant extra motivation for Modrić, and his career in the Premier League started to take off. He performed so well that he was voted the team’s player of the year.

Luka’s perseverance and hard work paid off. Several English clubs wanted to sign him, but in the end it was Real Madrid who succeeded, purchasing the Croatian player from the London club for £30 million in 2012. He found himself facing that wall from which balls had bounced back to him as projectiles in his childhood. Modrić knew exactly how to handle them. When I heard the news, I happily called Benji.

“Did you hear that Modrić went to Real?” I asked excitedly.

“So Real bought themselves another star! That’s youth development for you!” Benji “celebrated” with me — he famously didn’t like the Blancos.

I think it’s actually because I do. It’s also true that because of his roots, Benji was primarily enthusiastic about German football. Despite this, he once bought a Barcelona cap and wore it day and night for years just to annoy me. Oh, those El Clásicos back then…

“By the way, Hungarian Television called today too. I’m going to work for them!” I announced to Benji with a grin from ear to ear.

“Really?! Well, that’s great, we should drink to that!” my friend genuinely celebrated with me. “But I’m still not happy that Luka’s moving to Madrid!” Benji jabbed.

I couldn’t have been happier. Modrić transferred from my English team’s rival to my Spanish team, and I could start working at the channel where I’d wanted to work since childhood. Unlike Modrić, I couldn’t overcome every difficulty, but then again, my childhood wasn’t about war.

By 2013, the Croatian had become a key player for the Spanish giant, and later its captain, remaining so until 2025. Then he signed with the Italian club AC Milan, where at 40 years old he continues to play with the same enthusiasm as in that Croatian hotel parking lot.

By the time Modrić arrived in Italy, I was no longer working at my childhood dream job either. As much as I’d loved television, I’d fallen at least as much in love with a California girl. I was perhaps only happier at my wedding than when this fragile, supposedly physically weak Croatian guy managed to break Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi’s duopoly at the Ballon d’Or gala.

I watched all six Champions League victories he won in Real Madrid colors. After the 2018 World Cup final, I was as sad as the Croatians. I really wanted this wonderful footballer to be given the world championship title too, but now I believe that the silver medal shines no less brightly.

I remember Modrić’s last match at the Bernabéu. He left the pitch in the 85th minute, where his teammates and opposing players formed a guard of honor for him. A huge banner was also stretched out in the stadium in his honor with the inscription “Gracias leyenda” (Thank you, legend).

And I, wearing a Modrić jersey, cried on the couch like a child in the early afternoon hours due to the time difference, mourning one of my heroes. Benji also sent a message because he knew I was watching, and I was sure that on this evening he too would give in to the Spanish league. The message simply said: “He’ll have a better place at Milan!”

I laughed through my tears because Benji never stopped, not even in a moment like this. And I knew that somewhere he was right, because the 2025/26 season is very important for Modrić. He’s preparing for the last World Cup of his life, and for that he needs to play. Madrid’s walls had already closed in on him at forty, but the San Siro’s gates opened wide.

When Modrić signed with Italy, I read an earlier interview where a journalist asked him when he understood as a child that there was a war.

“I remember the fear. We were playing football, and the air raid sirens went off. That was normal.”

Suddenly I felt heat, and the scent of ripe fruit.