I don't know about ranking but Redondo, Zizou and Modric is some order. Modric is probably right in the middle of those two in the pantheon of best midfielders. If you just talk of achievements, well for RM Modric is head and shoulders above the other two. My favorite will always be the mercurial Jose Maria Gutierrez.
I never saw Redondo play, shame cos people regard him so highly I feel like I’ve missed out big time.
You're welcome. You know after he transferred from Madrid to Milan he had a bad knee injury (he was never the same again) in pre-season for them and didn't play the whole season. He refused to take his salary until he was fully fit and even offered to return the club car and house. Even a football lifer like Galliani was blown away by him. The way he talks about Madrid is how you want a person to revere the institution. Not just a great player but a humble man who didn't like the limelight (bit like Zizou) and a person you want your club to be associated with. Very few players come back to the Bernabeu in a different shirt and get the adoration and respect he got. That alone says it all. Last few mins of this video = goosebumps
These Football Times has a great article on him where they mention the Milan move you mentioned, he seems like a gentlemen of the sport and the highlights I’ve seen ... he looks special.
#1. He’s the most complete midfielder this club has had. He’s a 9/10 at the least in every aspect of his position. Immense both offensively and defensively. Makes others around him better. He’s also the most consistent midfielder to play for the club. The impact his injury had in 14/15 displayed how much he was the fulcrum of the team. Lastly, he has all the trophies too.
Bale perhaps scored a better goal. Zizou and Modric does not even play the same role. And when it comes to consistency, Modric is way ahead of Zizou. I am a massive massive Zizou fan , to think that we are talking about Modric in the same breath as Zizou itself shows how great and immensely impactful Modric has been for us, a silky smooth player, exemplary behavior on and off the field, loves the institution ( never remember him creating issues for pay rise and all) , I am surely gonna miss him so badly once he hangs up his boots. Nothing short of scintillating, exhilarating displays that he has dished out for us over and over again. Thanks a lot Godric, hope there is more to come
Zidane was the better player but Modric has been better for Madrid, he has contributed more and won more.
The club kicked Redondo out tbh, but he never turned on the club. In hindsight, Milan got their revenge with Kaka.
That's why people remember it that he went out on a high, which would only be true for national football as he dragged his feet at club level.
He had another year on his contract and gave it up because he knew his legs had gone in the last season. Apparently he told Florentino when he retired not to tell his dad that he gave up millions in salary cause his dad would want to kill him. If he had a stellar last season with us and retired I would be a bit upset about it. But he left at exactly the right time, probably both as player and manager. Zidane is a class act all round.
Interesting read World Cup 2018: Luka Modric could already be Ballon d'Or winner, says Dejan Lovren https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/...c_sport&ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=facebook
First and foremost, Modric & Zidane are completely different type of players. One plays deeper, the other was a pure #10 who's more involved in final 3rd. So you can't really make a direct compariison between them. Zidane was a fantastic player - on his day. But unfortunately, he's bascially a French equalavent of Guti in term of inconsistency and our transition was slow at times due to Zidane's tendency for being to hogging the ball and making unnecessary showboating (similar issue Isco has). Zidane was used as a attacking midfielder, but his pitiful goal+assist/game throughout his club career (not just Real Madrid) can't really be compared to the likes of James Rodríguez, Özil etc. On the other hand, Modric has been undoubtedly the best midfielder for the past 5 seasons and being RM's most influencial player for a RM-side winning 4 UCLs in 5 years, LaLiga and many other titles. The 2014-15 season was flushed into the toilet when Modric got that injury, exposing how badly we missed him. Only Ronaldo can be compared to Modric in term of being consistent on a ridiculously high level. Those emotions you're talking about is so called nostalgia. Which can be clouded due to revisionism as the time passes. And Zidane is hardly a 'poet of a midfielder', which I highlighted before. The goal Bale scored agianst Liverpool in UCL-final was even better. By the same reasoning, does that make him a Madrid GOAT forward? Obviously not, and same goes for Zidane....
Modric and Zidane are indeed different players, agreed. Therefore I think a better comparison to Modric would be Redondo and maybe a discussion can be had on the same which will be more fruitful. But since the above quoted mentions another set of comparisons, let us get into that. Guti is a RM legend with some of the greatest passing skills ever seen, no question about that. While Zidane was probably a greater player for France than any of his big clubs, as the French built their team around him, unlike what happened at RM and Juve for most of his time with these teams. Having said that, suggesting that Guti and Zidane are comparable in any way, in terms of consistency, is really very odd. Zidane was never dropped from any of his teams by his coaches (whether as a youngster, a star or as a veteran) due to a perceived lack of consistency. And yet this feeble consistency related argument seems to be conveniently used all the time as a stick to beat Zidane with, by the CRonaldo-Messi generation of football fans (who in turn seem to be influenced by Cules with an obvious agenda). Anyway, in case of Guti the opposite seemed to occur, as he was dropped quite often, something that even happened when there was no viable replacement and he was in his prime, i.e. in the season 06/07 (though he redeemed himself spectacularly with his off-the-bench heroics). As for goals+assist numbers, you seem to have incorrect data based on which you are reaching faulty conclusions. If you have watched Zidane during his time in RM (especially the first 2 seasons), you should be able to figure out that the numbers that you provided through that link, are not reliable at all. In fact, when considering the statistically best seasons of Zidane, Ozil and James at Real Madrid, we get the following - Ozil - 35 goals+assists in 53 games ; In a RM team scoring at 2.508 gpg James - 33 goals+assists in 46 games ; In a RM team scoring at 2.746 gpg Zidane - 31 goals+assists in 50 games ; In a RM team scoring at 2.323 gpg Furthermore, Zidane seems to have achieved similar numbers (30 goals + assists) for Bordeaux and slightly lower numbers (26 goals + assists) for Juventus, in his best seasons for those teams as well. And both those numbers are higher than anything that James has achieved outside of his best season mentioned above. At the same time, those numbers are reasonably close to the best numbers that Ozil has achieved with Wolfsburg and Arsenal. Thus Zidane was actually, statistically quite comparable to both James and Ozil, but in an era which was much less conducive for putting up such numbers. This was one of the reasons, in addition to his obvious technical abilities, why he was so highly regarded in his time, as one of the two best players of that era. Going through the above, it seems that whatever revisionism/emotionally clouded reasoning is happening here regarding Zidane, is coming from you.
Lukita was football porn again today. If he manages to win the WC with Croatia, there is no question about who deserved the Ballon o dor.
Best of luck to Lukita for today's game. England are a good young team who will have more chances in future tournaments, but for Modric, this is probably the last realistic chance of winning with his NT. Hope he grabs it with both hands and the entire Croatian team play to their fullest potential, to make their first major international tournament final.