It is pretty likely that if we do not sell him we will have to renew him on a higher salary/longer contract due to his contributions these years and the WC. The timing is awkward.
Has anyone said that we don't have a good relationship with Modric or anything? Everyone loves him and he loves the club, fans and the city. That's not up for dispute. Florentino put an end to the rumor so i doubt he would be leaving. For me that means that he will retire here in a couple of years, hopefully happily. I would love for him to take become a coach and take over a youth team. The problem now is what to do with Kovacic.
Of course we’ll have to renew him on a longer contract, that’s how contracts work. What you want, is to keep Modric but face absolutely none of the repercussions in case his form falls off a cliff in 2 years ... of which there have been ABSOLUTELY no signs off, so you say sell him now (whilst he’s the best player in the world) just in case. Totally bizarre logic.
Barca gave Iniesta a life time contract and it didn't bite them in the ass. I don't see why we shouldn't try to benefit from Modric until he has his spark. He is much more important than it looks. I am totally in for renewing his contract.
Dude, it did bite them in the ass. Lifetime contract are pointless and we can't afford that if we want to be competitive. Do people really believe that Modric can play at this level, or anything close to it, until he's 35-37?
What even is a lifetime contract? Does it mean the player can play for the club till 50 if he wants and the club would still have to pay his wages and can’t force him out?
It's stupid, it basically means that you will have a contract with the club as long as you don't retire from football. Barca did it as a panic move, which they often do, and soon they had to figure out how to get rid of him as he was obviously declining for a long time now, even before they gave him the lifetime contract.
It is basically a continuing performance contract (for an indefinite period of time) that can - in principle - not be terminated. The obvious flip-side is that when terminated, the terminating party will have to pay damages (calculated by court). In other words: parties will reach an agreement, in which the player receives a golden handshake. Of couse, it’s more complicated than the above, but that’s basically the high-level explanation.
How did it bite them in the ass? They respected their legend and their legend respected back by leaving when he should and not screwing them over that gesture. Any way, i am not saying we should give a life contract to Modric. I'm saying that we should lock him up as long as he can give us his magic. I like a renew with better salaries and no expansion or 1 year expansion.
It is symbolic. No player at a legend status will use it to force the club to pay his retirement money and ruin his image. I don't advocate it though. I just want us to have Modric as long as he can boss the midfield. Even if we can have him on the bench for a year to ease the transition of Kovacic or Ceballos.
It bit them in the ass because they ended up having to sell him not 1 year after giving him the lifetime contract. So much for honoring a club legend.
I don't know, i felt it was more Iniesta's decision than the club's. Iniesta could always be a golden sub for them. Any way, despite being an emotional non logical move, the life time contract didn't do any harm to the club.
Because he was slightly forced to move out, if he had chosen to stay it would have been a very harmful deal. Honestly, i can only see Barcelona doing something like this and i said it's a panic move from a few people to save their own asses. I would agree with Modric earning more here but i would be careful with contract extensions and that has nothing to do with the club honoring (or not) a player. I think all sides would be fine with a 1 year extension. Personally, i am fine with him having 2 years left in his contract.
Then he would leave for free. I'm a proponent of selling when the price is high. There is no sentimentality when it comes to the good of the club, and Modric is a diminishing asset.
I've posted earlier that i would agree to sell him if the price was right and of course if he wants to move away. The silver lining for me was we get to see what Kovacic is made of, but if we can keep both Modric and Kova that would be a win for me. I don't mind Modric staying for 2-3 more years because our young midfielders can learn so much from him. That rumor is shut down anyway, Inter have apparently moved on to Gundogan.
Possibly but we are overloaded in midfield and there are going to be disgruntled players from sitting idle on the bench. If Modric is untouchable then we should probably push Kova to take the ManU deal, lools like Bayern has an opening.
I think the club should be selling players when they don't fit into the plans. The best midfield player of the last seals and the World cup fits well in the plans. This club doesn't need to sell anybody.
Its funny how people think that after unprecedented success, players don't (or even shouldn't) feel like they need a new challenge. Somehow the general opinion is that this squad should stay as unchanged as possible, with only a few reinforcements, and only in the areas where there is a lack of quality. Anyone who truly understands sports knows that quality needs to be maximized by hunger. Thats why it doesn't matter whether Modric is better than another worldclass midfielder, if achieving everything possible here and having the last chance to do something else denied renders him complacent. I can completely understand him or anyone else in this team who is approaching the twilight of the career if he would want to leave.
I would understand a move to Juve and even Napoli or Bayern or PSG or even City but Inter? It puzzles me.
There are couple of reasons why it would make sense: New challenge at a club that is aiming to dethrone Juve (much bigger thing then going to Bayern to add one more league title to his name) He'd walk in the same way Ronaldo walked in Juve, as a king from day one, not just another player (like at Bayern) easy to learn the language as he already speaks Spanish 3 Croats in the team already There's 500 km from Milan to Zadar, he'd be close to home I get the whole thing about players lacking motivation and drive after winning 4 CL's in 5 years. There's nothing left for them to accomplish, but still I think he just wants another 2 years on his contract. When the money starts coming in the players start living large and as the end comes near money becomes more important then anything else (specially when you won it all). As an example, Davor Suker made all the wrong investments after his career ended and was left without money. On a side note, he took the easy way and now he's Mamic's puppet and the whole Croatia hates him. Every single person including every player in the national team. No one likes the man. It's probably the only thing where the whole country is unified. Dario Simic was a bench player at Milan and made peanuts in his career compared to Suker but he made all the right investments and now owns a large chain of bars and he bought almost all of the real estate in the most famous street in Zagreb for nightlife and now he's renting and living like a king. I don't know what Modric did with the money but there's not much info about his investments. Mats Hummels has build bunch of villas couple of years ago very close to Modric's home town and is renting them. Modric should be in the same business. You can't miss if you invest in tourism in Croatia.