PPeople have been trying to get Luka Modric to retire for more than six years. It was after the 2018 World Cup that friends first tentatively broached the subject: his contemporaries Mario Mandzukic and Vedran Corluka had called it quits after Croatia’s final defeat, and Modric himself knew there would be a certain elegiac poetry in drawing the curtain on his country’s greatest achievement. Hymns rang in his ears, the Ballon d’Or in his hands. They left them wanting more, and all that. But still, something inside him rebelled.

“My heart told me to stay,” he later wrote in his autobiography. “Playing for your national team is one of the most fulfilling experiences; I still want to feel it. I feel fit and motivated. It is true that retiring after the silver medal in Russia would have left the biggest impression. But I don’t care so much about impressions.”

And so he’s back, reporting to Zagreb this week, a few new faces to greet but mostly the same old crowd. Mateo Kovacic gives him a hug that could warm coals. Luka Sucic, the Real Sociedad midfielder who was three years old when Modric made his Croatia debut, wraps him gently in his arms as if he were a favorite grandmother. The 2018 World Cup was four tournaments ago, Croatia’s golden generation is slowly fading past the vanishing point, and even then Modric was the second-oldest player in that squad.

He turns 39 on September 9. What is he doing here? There has been vague talk in Spain that Modric’s decision to extend his international career has not been met with unanimous approval at Real Madrid, who perhaps thought they were finally getting him for themselves when they offered him a one-year contract extension in July. But anyone who knows Modric would have told you that this is a man who will keep going as long as his legs can support his weight and the ball still dances to his tune.

Domagoj Vida and Marcelo Brozovic were the latest to step down after the disappointment of Euro 2024, with the latter opting to remain stuck on 99 caps. Kovacic is still a force, while Ivan Perisic is just hanging on. And for a coach approaching his eighth year in the job, Zlatko Dalic is feeling the passing of time better than most. “We are without two senators but are happy that our captain remains on board,” he said when announcing the squad last month. “Luka is our great strength, both on and off the pitch.”

This seemingly endless autumn in his career has seen Modric come to embody something bigger than himself, bigger even than the country he leads or the club he represents. You may recall the viral video of the journalist at Euro 2024 imploring Modric to “never retire”. These days, from Anfield last year to Las Palmas last week, opposing fans almost always rise to their feet to give him a standing ovation. On some level, you can sense that football almost wants Modric to keep playing. That’s doubly interesting when you consider the player he’ll be facing in Lisbon on Thursday night.

Cristiano Ronaldo, who turned 39 in February, has also decided to continue his international career, but that particular decision feels far more controversial. “When the time is right, I will move on,” Ronaldo announced this week ahead of Portugal’s Nations League doubleheader against Croatia and Scotland, as if this were a decision for him and him alone. Which it probably is: even after a disappointing Euro 2024, Roberto Martínez has shown no inclination to respond to the growing wave of public opinion in Portugal urging him to let Ronaldo go and build a new team around his ridiculously talented core of peak-age players.

For a man with whom he played for six years at Madrid and won virtually every pot in the game, Modric has, oddly enough, little to say about Ronaldo in his autobiography. There is, of course, a deep mutual admiration, a faithful recounting of achievements and successes, the odd word of support exchanged over the years, but read between the lines and the bond between them seems more professional than personal. As teammates, they are solemnly bound together by a shared mission. As people, they could hardly be more different.

Perhaps the difference in outlook was most apparent in late 2018, when Modric arrived at FIFA’s The Best Awards in London to find Ronaldo’s designated seat empty. With Modric widely tipped to win the top prize, Ronaldo and Lionel Messi – invited to the ceremony as members of the World XI – had decided to skip the evening. Modric understands why. Yet he finds it hard to hide his disappointment.

“I felt sorry that they were not present at that unforgettable evening,” he would later write. “I think it would have been much more elegant if they had shown up, even if they had not won. That would have shown respect for all the people who voted for them in the past, but also for the football movement as a whole.”

But Ronaldo’s fans would probably argue that disrespect has been the bedrock of his success: disrespect for convention and tradition, disrespect for records, a magnificent disrespect for critics and centre-backs. Disrespect helped Ronaldo break down barriers. But it’s also why his own extended retirement tour attracts only a fraction of the admiration and affection that Modric seems to inspire wherever he goes.

Modric has won everything in the club game. He is the most decorated player in Madrid’s history. Next month, he will almost certainly break Ferenc Puskas’s record as the club’s oldest player. But an international trophy continues to elude him. He must feel, as we all do, that 2018 was his best chance, that 2022 is his last chance, that 2026 – when he turns 40 – is a long shot. But the Nations League, a tournament Croatia won on a penalty shootout last year – this could be his final crowning achievement.

And if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. Maybe the fight is enough. Maybe the shirt is enough. Maybe love is enough: love for the ball, love for the game, love for the opponent. A country he would die for and a family who will suffer with him. What is he still doing here? Maybe we should turn the question around. It’s international week. Where else would Luka Modric be?