Luka Modric Achieves 200 Caps as Croatia Beats Panama
The night belonged to Luka Modric long before the final whistle, long before Ante Budimir slid in at the back post and dragged Croatia’s campaign off the floor.
At 40, the captain walked out in Toronto and quietly joined one of football’s most exclusive clubs. Two hundred senior caps. Only Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Kuwait’s Bader al-Mutawa have ever been there before him. Modric didn’t ask for fireworks. He rarely does. But his team made sure the moment would not pass unnoticed.
Black T-shirts appeared after the game, “Infinite Legacy” splashed across the chest with the number 200 stamped beneath. A simple tribute for a player who has spent a career shunning fuss. His manager, Zlatko Dalic, did the talking instead.
“He is still influencing matches and to play for your country 200 times, that is a lot. We need to be very happy to have him in the team. Luka is very humble and this is why he is not for major celebrations. But I am very glad we marked this today in front of our fans,” Dalic said, the words as much a verdict on an era as on a single night.
Croatia suffocated, then set free
For 45 minutes, the script threatened to sour. Panama arrived with their 5-4-1 drilled and disciplined, the lines tight, the spaces between them even tighter. Croatia passed, probed, recycled. Little happened.
The frustration grew in the stands, where Croatian fans had turned a corner of Toronto into a pocket of Zagreb. On the pitch, it grew in Modric’s gestures and in the flatness of a forward line that rarely found room between Panama’s centre-backs and midfield shield.
Dalic had seen enough by half-time. The solution was blunt but effective: more presence in the box. Ante Budimir came on, Croatia’s battering ram from Osasuna, a striker who lives off crosses and chaos.
The change altered the game’s geometry. Suddenly Panama’s back three had a body to worry about. The Croatian wide players pushed higher, the passing became more vertical, the tempo sharper.
The breakthrough arrived in the 54th minute and it was worth the wait. Marco Pasalic, drifting in from the right, produced a deft backheel that split the defensive line and released Josip Stanisic. The full-back didn’t hesitate. One touch to steady himself, then a low, driven cross skidding through the six-yard box.
At the far post, Budimir arrived with the calm of a man who has scored this goal a hundred times. Side-foot, controlled, precise. 1-0, and the tension snapped like a cable.
The stadium erupted. Red-and-white shirts whirled in the stands, Modric’s name chanted as though he had scored it himself. Croatia, finally, had a foothold in this tournament.
Panama fight, but lack the finish
The goal changed the noise but not Panama’s attitude. Thomas Christiansen’s side had already shown they were not here to make up the numbers. In the first half, Jose Luis Rodriguez had come within inches of a famous lead, his header flicked onto the underside of the bar by Dominik Livakovic. It bounced down and out, a reminder of how thin the margins are at this level.
Panama kept pushing, even as the stakes for them became brutally clear. Lose, and their 2026 journey was over. They lost, but they refused to go quietly.
They won seven corners, loaded the box, and turned the second half into a series of scrambles in front of Livakovic. The Croatia goalkeeper had to be sharp, pushing away low efforts, commanding his area as crosses rained in. The Canaleros had the spirit. They just did not have the finish.
Christiansen, though, refused to turn on his players.
“They played with that hunger, with that dedication, with that spirit. That’s what we wanted of the team. I’m super proud of them. They [Croatia] put two shots on goal and scored one,” he said afterwards, a coach eliminated but unbowed.
The numbers told the story. Effort was not the problem. Goals were. Two games, zero points, and now a final, dead-rubber meeting with England to close out a campaign that promised more than it delivered in the box.
Pasalic’s miss and a group on a knife-edge
Croatia could have spared themselves the late anxiety. The pressure that had built after Budimir’s opener should have produced a second. It almost did.
Pasalic, the architect of the first goal, suddenly found himself clean through, one-on-one with Orlando Mosquera. This was the moment to kill the contest, to ease the burden on legs that have carried Croatia deep into so many tournaments.
Mosquera stood tall, blocked the first effort, and as the rebound looped invitingly, Pasalic lashed over. Hands went to heads. Dalic turned away. The scoreline stayed fragile.
Still, the tactical shift at the break had done its job. Croatia, beaten by England on the opening day, could not afford another misstep. They did not play with the fluidity that took them to the 2018 final, but they played with enough intelligence and control to get out alive.
Pasalic summed up the mood in the camp.
“We were pretty aware of our quality and the situation that we were in. What we didn’t do in the first half, we did in the second half. We’ve been relieved of the burden and now we can move on,” he said. Relief, not euphoria. Work still to do.
Modric’s milestone, Croatia’s moment of truth
Beyond the personal landmark, the win detonated fresh intrigue in Group L. England’s 0-0 stalemate with Ghana earlier in the day had already cracked the door open. Now it stands wide.
England and Ghana sit on four points. Croatia lurk on three. Panama are out, but they still have a say in who joins them on the plane home.
The permutations are simple, the pressure anything but. Croatia know the equation: beat Ghana in Philadelphia and they are into the last 32. Anything less, and they start to rely on favours. England, facing a Panama side with nothing left but pride to play for, need only avoid defeat to progress.
So Modric, at 200 caps and counting, walks into yet another decisive night in his country’s colours. The legs may not glide as they once did, but the mind still dictates, the passes still carve, the standards still drag others with him.
Croatia’s “Infinite Legacy” is already written on the T-shirts. The question now is whether this team, under this captain, can stretch it one more chapter into the knockout rounds.
