Whether theyd like to accept it or not, Real Madrid will soon have to face a huge transitional period. Some of the biggest stars at the club are approaching retirement or are simply too old to play at such a high level that Los Blancos require every week.
The same may be true for Luka Modrić, their midfield maestro, Ballon d’Or winner and recently also World Cup finalist. The Croat is now 35 and despite his age putting him deep into the experienced category, he seems as crucial as ever, dictating play and dominating the opposition whenever selected.
Of course, Zinedine Zidane is well aware that a player of 35 may have some limitations when it comes to constant activity so he’s been dosing him across the 2020/21 season, resulting in 1660 minutes in all competitions. These statistics suggest Modrić is as key as ever to Zidane’s tactics and further analysis will confirm that thesis.
However, he’s only completed the full 90 minutes in 10 games out of the 23 he’s played so far, indicating that he may not have enough in the tank to sustain a full season of high level, hectic performances.
For that reason, as painful as it may be for Real Madrid and their fans, the time is ripe for them to look how to replace Modrić or simply fill in the huge void that’s bound to be created with his inevitable departure.
To accomplish that, this data analysis will use Total Football Analysis’ exclusive tool called xGold to find players whose profiles match Modrić’s so we can find similar options within the top five leagues and beyond.
We have also adjusted our data to only show players with at least 1000 minutes played in 2020/21 and up to the age of 28 since we want both young players and players in their prime but not veterans.
Note, however, that this is a data analysis and not a tactical analysis so these players will match Modrić’s output in statistics primarily. Still, we have also scouted them to determine whether the eye-test confirms what the data had initially suggested.
Also, the five players we’ve chosen are mostly under the radar options that clubs, Real Madrid included, may not be fully aware of or may not have initially considered. Listing the best midfielders in the world would be easy but we’ve decided to compare Modrić’s profile to other midfielders and see whether we can uncover an outside the box option.
So this is not a list that will give you a perfect Modrić replacement, not least because such a thing may be close to impossible, but will serve the purpose of revealing players with similar profiles to him.
Let’s dive straight into the analysis.
Determining the profile of Luka Modrić
Luka Modrić has such a unique player profile it’s almost impossible to replicate. Above is a graphical representation of his statistical output in the 2020/21 La Liga season, compared to the other midfielders in the league. Note, however, that these are percentile ranks and not per 90 figures.
The principle remains the same – the higher the value, the better the player in that respective category or rather, the higher his percentile ranking. For example, a score of 80 in any given category would mean the player in question is better than 80% of the other players in that category.
So
