Video Interview with Luka Modric

Here is an interesting short video interview (by sport.co.uk) with Luka Modric, talking about this season in the Premiership and for Croatian International football.

Middlesbrough 2-1 Tottenham

Unfortunately for Tottenham Hotspur, Middlesbrough beat them 2-1 in their opening game of the 2008-09 Premiership.

The new signings David Bentley, Giovani Dos Santos and Luka Modric showed some individual brilliance, but they failed to click together, while Aaron Lennon was work hard but didn’t yield the desired result yet either. However after they will have played a few games, that will get the opportunity to glue together, don’t forget this is almost a whole new team!

Middlesbrough: Brad Jones, Andrew Taylor, Gary O’Neill, Emanuel Pogatetz, Jeremie Aliadiere, Afonso Alves (Mido 83), Robert Huth, Mohamed Shawky, Tuncay Sanli (Didier Digard 72), Stewart Downing, David Wheater.

Tottenham: Heurelho Gomes, Didier Zokora, Benoit Assou-Ekotto (Jamie O’Hara 77), Michael Dawson, Jonathan Woodgate, Aaron Lennon (Gareth Bale 66), Jermaine Jenas, Luka Modric, Giovani dos Santos (Dimitar Berbatov 65), David Bentley, Darren Bent.

Spurs dominate Roma

Today the final pre-season friendly for the Spurs got played… and what a game! Tottenham dominated and destroyed the Roma squad who were helpless, resulting in a 5-0 victory. They started with all their major signings of the summer - Luka Modric, Bentley, Giovani dos Santos and Heurelho Gomes - in a strong line-up which also included Dimitar Berbatov. It looks like Modric has overcome his knee injury and performed well. With this quality line-up we can expect the Spurs to go for a top-three position in the league table!

Modric: injured knee, Corluka joining Spurs?

Yesterday, Luka Modric was to play against Dortmund in a friendly, but rested the whole game instead. Earlier during warm-up training, Modric broke down with a knee injury. It’s likely that the injury was caused during the Celtic game and now just got worse. However the injury isn’t believed to be all that serious but he will still get checked out by a specialist.

The match ended with Tottenham Hotspur winning with a comfortable 3 to nill from Borussia Dortmund.

It is also believed that Tottenham Hotspur will close the £7 million deal taking Vedran Corluka to White Hart Lane anytime now. Corluka is a versatile defender (but usually playing right back) and a Croatian National Team mate of Modric.

Norwich - Tottenham Friendly, Modric scores

Here’s a video compilation of the Norwich - Tottenham pre-season friendly, ending 1-5. Luka Modric scoring as well!

Great performance by Tottenham! Promising for the coming season! Hopefully they manage to sign Roman Pavlyuchenko as well, who really impressed me at Euro 2008. He should be a great asset to the team…

Bilic will rest Modric tonight

Since Croatia has already qualified for the EURO 2008 quarter finals, coach Slaven Bilic will rest some key players, including Luka Modric. Not so much because they are tired, but because they are threatened by suspension by having been yellow-carded earlier in the tournament. This might be good news for Poland who will thus play against a B-team of Croatia. If the Poles can win against Croatia and Germany doesn’t win from Austria, they can still qualify as well. Nevertheless, Bilic has stated although some key players won’t take part, they are still going for the win.

The next important game for Modric and Croatia will be the quarter finals match against Turkey, who won from the Czech Republic yesterday in a thrilling match. Although first behind 2-0, Turkey still managed to claw back and win the game 2-3!

Well organised Croatia win from Germany, hardworking Modric

Today Croatia played a great game against Germany, winning 2-1. Dario Srna scored on the 24th minute mark, Ivica Olic scored another lucky one on the 63rd. Podolski scored a late goal but after that Germany was unable to keep the pressure on. Croatia was tactically superior and played smart, while some of Germany’s players were very disappointing, making costly mistakes.

Luka Modric played a much better game than the last one. He was very hardworking and everywhere on the pitch, combining with some nice individual actions now and then. Modric also nearly scored towards the end.

Man of the match for me was Olic, what an energy on the pitch this man has! Battling for every ball… Also worth noting was the passion that charismatic coach Bilic displayed near the sidelines, running up and down, giving directions. If he could he would have joined the game on the pitch!

EURO 2008: Luka Modric in action tonight!

Luckily for the fans, the achilles injury of Luka Modric wasn’t anything severe and he has been declared fully fit meaning we’ll see him in action tonight! Hopefully Modric will really shine against Germany this time since his performance in the previous Group B game against Austria was decent but nothing spectacular.

Bilic also promised some changes earlier and might replace Mladen Petric (who wasn’t convincing in the first match) by Ivan Rakitic from Schalke04. However, Klasnic might also be a candidate for that position. Germany will probably play with the same team and the main threatwill come from striker Podolski who is in a lethal form.