Luka Modri\u0107 and Cristiano Ronaldo have shared the pitch 233 times over the course of their illustrious careers; 222 as teammates and 11 as opponents. Thursday night at Toronto Stadium might have been their final time.<\/p>\n
After Croatia’s 2-1 loss to Portugal in the round of 32, Modri\u0107 is widely expected to retire from international soccer, closing a chapter in the midfielder’s storied career. Ronaldo, who was teammates with Modri\u0107 at Real Madrid from 2012 to 2018, praised Modri\u0107 following what could be his final World Cup match, and their last time playing each other.<\/p>\n
“I played with Luka so many years,” Ronaldo said. “We\u2019re nearly the same age. I think he\u2019s a legend of football. He\u2019s still a legend of football.”<\/p>\n
The two soccer legends shared a few smiles and an embrace ahead of the coin toss before the match. The two met on the pitch after the match, hugged and exchanged a few words.<\/p>\n
Modri\u0107 led Croatia to second- and third-place finishes in 2018 and 2022, and the match carried the weight of the two aging stars each trying to realize the dream of winning the World Cup. Modri\u0107 is 40; Ronaldo is 41.<\/p>\n
Croatia coach Zlatko Dali\u0107 said this was “probably” Modri\u0107\u2019s last World Cup, but added, “only God knows what will happen in the next four years. We\u2019ll see. We\u2019ll talk about it in Croatia.”<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Luka Modri\u0107 and Cristiano Ronaldo have shared the pitch 233 times over the course of their illustrious careers; 222 as teammates and 11 as opponents. Thursday night at Toronto Stadium might have been their final time. After Croatia’s 2-1 loss to Portugal in the round of 32, Modri\u0107 is widely expected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}