Luka Modrić continues to not get old

Hello and welcome to the Friday grab bag. When the World Cup rolls around this summer, you’re probably going to get the pleasure of watching a 41-year-old former Golden Ball winner. Luka Modrić remains his country’s best player, nearly 20 years after making his debut.

The Croatia captain is closing in on 200 international caps, and his country can qualify for the finals if they beat Faroe Islands at home tonight. This isn’t actually as easy as it sounds if you haven’t been paying attention to UEFA qualifying — Faroe Islands have wins over Montenegro and Czechia! — but I still expect them to get the job done.

While it might have been an appropriate time for Real Madrid to move on from Modrić, he’s still an outrageous performer at a step below the absolute top level. A move to Serie A, where a lot of teams sit in shape and there’s not nearly as much aggressive pressing as other top leagues, has been outstanding for one of the world’s best deep-lying playmakers. He’s putting up numbers that rival some of the guys we mentioned earlier this week, like Vitinha and Gavi.

So if you don’t get to catch a lot of Serie A and you were wondering if Modrić still has it, the answer is a resounding yes. Dude’s still a superstar.

Over on the podcast, Pat and Hayden wondered whether it’s time for Liverpool to move on from Mohamed Salah, who’s probably still worth an ungodly amount of money to a team in Saudi Arabia. They also dig into the latest developments with Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Their Patreon-exclusive episode this week focuses on players they were wrong about, and how they changed the way they evaluate talent as a result.

Ted is not enough of a degenerate gambler to dive into the world of World Cup qualifiers, but there will be a piece on Variance Betting later today on why models often show favourites as undervalued and longshots as overvalued in outright markets.

Games we’re watching

It’s all women’s football this week. Sorry, the 48-team World Cup has made qualifying utterly uninteresting to me, they’ve removed all the stakes. I’ll start caring about that when the playoffs roll around in March.

Washington Spirit vs. Portland Thorns — With KC knocked out, Spirit are now the big favorites to win the NWSL championship. Hopefully we’ll see some more of Trinity Rodman this week.

Orlando Pride vs. Gotham FC — Last year’s double winners might be a slight underdog here. Orlando’s attack hasn’t been great without Barbra Banda, and acquiring Jaedyn Shaw late in the season has been a huge shot in the arm for Gotham.

Manchester City vs. Manchester United — This is about as close in quality as these teams have been in their history, though United just turned in a poor performance against Villa last week.

Tottenham Hotspur vs. Arsenal — Tottenham have been a pleasant surprise this season despite minimal summer transfer activity, and Arsenal have been mildly disappointing. Still, the visitors are pretty significant favorites.

Barcelona vs. Real Madrid — Real Madrid are much improved this season, looking comfortably like the 2nd best team in Spain. I still like the Blaugrana at home by multiple goals.

Stuff we’re reading

Paul Tenorio at The Athletic breaks down MLS’s change to the European soccer calendar and what it means for the league.

Ryan Benson at Opta Analyst looks at how each Premier League team is doing compared to where they were at this time last year.

Jonathan Liew at The Guardian opines on Trent Alexander-Arnold’s struggles at Real Madrid and exclusion from the England squad.

Gillian Kasirye at Total Football Analysis digs into Maghnes Akilouche at Monaco, who I still can’t believe didn’t make a huge move to a rich club this summer.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes at The Cutback previews the women’s North London Derby, which is a real opportunity for Spurs to prove that they’re actually good.

Llew Davies at Scouted profiles Kees Smit, the young AZ midfielder who broke out at the UEFA U-19s this summer. He’s holding his own against bigger league teams in Europa League.

Jonee at Football Heritage details the history of the San Siro and why tearing it down would be terrible.

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