After Croatia was on the verge of elimination at Euro 2024 on Monday night, Luka Modric is adamant that he would not retire.
Only 33 seconds after missing a penalty kick, the 38-year-old broke the record for the oldest striker in the history of the European Championship when he put Croatia ahead against Italy.
Croatia would have finished in second position in Group B behind Spain with a victory, but Italy managed to steal a 1-1 draw in injury time to take second place.
Croatia is now down to only two points at the end of the group stage and has little chance of making it to the round of sixteen as one of the top four third-place teams.
Although Modric said he is unclear of how many more seasons he has left, he and Real Madrid agreed to a new one-year contract deal earlier this month.
“I hope to play forever, but I think there will come a time when I have to hang up my boots,” Modric stated following Croatia’s Monday stalemate with Italy.
“I’m going to continue playing, but I’m not sure how long.”
“We’ll see, it’s not for those stories now,” Modric said in response to the question of if this would be his last game for Croatia.
In a separate interview, Modric criticized the decision to add eight minutes of additional time and called the outcome versus Italy “cruel.”
The midfielder remarked, “I don’t know what to tell you, football is sometimes cruel, that was shown to us today, what is, is there.”
“I don’t know where the referee gave eight minutes to extend; we didn’t deserve this goal.” We lost today, and that’s how you should fall. I am aware that it is not comforting.
When asked about his record of being the European Championship’s oldest goal scorer, Modric replied, “The title means nothing to me when it didn’t help the team.”
We fought like lions, yet we suffered at the hands of football. In the last seconds, they let up two goals. It will take some time for us to realize this; it’s difficult to put into words.