There’s no denying that Luka Modric is one of Real Madrid’s most important players. The Croatian is the heartbeat of the Blancos midfield, linking the defence and attack with ease. While Real Madrid remained unbeaten during his time on the sidelines earlier in the campaign, the defending European champions looked far from their fluid best during the 31-year-old’s absence. Indeed, he highlighted his importance to the side with a man of the match performance in the 1-1 draw with Barcelona at the weekend.
A WhoScored rating of 7.82 was better than any other player in El Clasico and contributed to a season average of 7.55, the fourth best of all Real Madrid players in La Liga this season. In the expected absence of Toni Kroos, Modric’s influence in the middle of the park is all the more vital. Kroos has a better pass success rate (92.7%) than any other player in La Liga this season and while Modric (89.4%) is close to matching that, it’s the latter’s distribution that is vital when Real Madrid welcome Borussia Dortmund to the Bernabeu on Wednesday night.
Zinedine Zidane’s side sit two points behind their Bundesliga counterparts coming into the final round of fixtures of the Champions League and need to win in order to progress as group winners. Topping the group increases the possibility of Real Madrid facing off against a more favourable opponent in the last-16 and they have history on their side having won three of their last four home competitive meetings with Dortmund.
Real Madrid are unbeaten in their last 33 games in all competitions. They haven’t tasted defeat since a 2-0 loss to Wolfsburg at the beginning of April on their path to securing their 11th European title last term. They are understandably favourites to come away with the necessary victory against Dortmund, though need to be wary of the attacking threat Thomas Tuchel’s side carries. While the young German manager has looked to move towards a more dominant approach to games having succeeded Jurgen Klopp, Dortmund remain capable of hitting teams on the counter attack, utilising the speed of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Ousmane Dembele and Marco Reus.
With the trio making darting runs in behind opposition defence, if Real Madrid are caught with too many men upfield, chances are high they will be punished. In this regard, Modric’s importance cannot be overstated. He’s not one to shirk his physical responsibilities, but his defensive influence is best noted in his impressive positional play. The midfielder’s best approach to denying the opposition comes in his reading of the game having developed a statistically calculated WhoScored strength of ‘concentration’.
This allows Modric to analyse the game from midfield and position himself accordingly in order to minimise the risk on the Real Madrid defence. It means he is averaging two interceptions per Champions League match and 1.8 per La Liga game and Modric needs to exhibit this quality to his game against Dortmund. Only Arsenal (1.5) average more key passes that are deemed through balls per game than Dortmund (1) away from home in the Champions League this season. A threaded through ball for the rapid Aubameyang to run onto would be the German side’s best route to goal. Real Madrid have kept only four clean sheets in 22 competitive fixtures this campaign and remain suspect defensively.
Moreover, Aubameyang has scored more goals (15) than any other player in Europe’s top five leagues this season, while only a handful of players have scored more Champions League goals than the Gabon international (3) this term, one of which came in the 2-2 draw with Real Madrid earlier in the year. That Aubameyang has scored in each of his three starts adds to the weight of expectation, but his recent good run suggests Real Madrid must be wary of the goalscoring threat he carries.
That being said, Real Madrid have their own goalscoring threat in the form of Cristiano Ronaldo, who leads the La Liga charts with 10 goals to his name. Meanwhile, only Neymar (7) and Ousmane Dembele (5) have registered more assists than Ronaldo (4) in the Champions League this season, with the 31-year-old also netting twice in the competition this term. In the final third, Modric will also be essential to supplying his teammates. While he is averaging just 0.7 key passes per match in the Champions League, 2.7 dribbles per game is second only to Marcelo (3) of all Real Madrid players.
With a desire to drive the ball forward from midfield to attack, Modric has the ability to open up space in the final third as he ghosts past opponents, in the process pegging teams back. If he has the time and space to utilise his dribbling quality, Dortmund could end up ruing their decision to not apply ample pressure on the Croatia international. Having earned the man of the match award in Saturday’s Clasico, Modric has what it takes to follow that up with another star showing as Real Madrid look to secure top spot in Group F.
