Luka Modric only spent four seasons with Spurs but learned enough about the English attitude to the international game.
The sight of a white, or sometimes red, shirt bearing three lions seems to send rational judgement out the window!
Average players at Everton and Leicester take on previously undiscovered qualities while players at Europe’s leading clubs are dismissed as over-rated or over the hill, sometimes both.
Strong words from Luka Modric post-match:
“English journalists, pundits from television, they underestimated Croatia tonight and that was a huge mistake. All these words from them we take, we were reading and we were saying ‘ok, today we will see who will be tired'” pic.twitter.com/Rxyv4WA03c
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) July 11, 2018
England’s passage from day one in the World Cup was the stuff of dreams. They topped the only UEFA qualifying group in which the runners-up failed to reach a play-off.
Scotland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Malta and Lithuania barely provided token resistance, much like Tunisia and Panama.
Defeat from Belgium, a penalty win over Colombia and a well earned win over Sweden sent a nation and it’s media into a frenzy of delusion.
France and the final awaited- until a nation of four million people inspired by a magical ‘waif’ triumphed and left a deluded nation to return to the uncomfortable realities of international football.
