you've made a few unverified claims, so let's talk about it.
~snip~
As I said before, Modric is/was the only ballon d'or winner I can remember, and certainly the best for a long time, I literally said it was back in the day if it ever happened. that is as old as 20+ even some of them 30+ years ago. Not denying that he wasn't good, never watched him and this is the first time I am hearing about him, he might be better than Modric, I will give you that, but you have to accept that was long time ago.~snip~
My point was that their best player for the last 20+ or so years is about to retire, probably I assume, which is a bad thing for them. Is it good that he is retiring? No. About the other matter, you can have the greatest goalkeeper in the world, and the greatest defenders in history, if you can't score, it will end 0-0, so you need scorers, even if you concede 5 goals, if you score 6, you win. That's why strikers valued more than other positions.
I hope Croatia continues their success, I really would love to see nations with not big pockets to win, it's much more fun that way, it's boring to see super rich nations win, I loved it when Argentina won over France, so I do hope you are right and I am wrong.
Ok, you're mostly right. Modric is the best footballer of this generation of Croatian footballers and it will be difficult to replace him.
I hope that in the next period Kovacic could finally become the leader of the new Croatian national team and lead it to new successes.
I think it is not fair or objective that forwards are always much more valued than defensive footballers and that defensive footballers practically have no chance of being declared the best in any election for the best footballer.
As far as Croatia is concerned, I believe that even after Modric's retirement, we will have a very young and high-quality national team that will show its strength already at the EURO next year, in the same way as after the retirement of the former stars, Prosinecki and Boban, new stars came and new quality footballers like Modric.
Throughout history, Croatia has always been a source of football talents and stars, and I would also like to mention the Croatian Drazen Jerkovic, who was the best scorer of the tournament at the World Cup in Chile in 1962, when Croatia was part of Yugoslavia, in the same way as the Croatian Suker was the best scorer of the 1998 World Cup in France. Therefore, there is no need to worry that Croatia will run out of new football talents and stars
At the EURO next year, along with France, England, Belgium, Italy and Spain, I believe that Croatia also has a good chance for a great result.