Ronaldo vs Modric in Their Last Dance: Portugal-Croatia Is the Round of 32's Most Loaded Fixture

[Mia_59]

Portugal face Croatia in Toronto at BMO Field on Thursday at 7pm ET in a round of 32 match so loaded with symbolism that several outlets have been writing about it for weeks before a ball has been kicked. Cristiano Ronaldo, 41, leads Portugal in what is almost certainly his final major tournament appearance. Luka Modric, 40 years and 291 days old, leads Croatia after setting the record for oldest World Cup assist in the group stage. Both men have spent the majority of their careers being compared to Messi and Ronaldo, alternately celebrated as the defining midfielders of their generation or the defining right wingers of theirs, and both have won everything at club level that can be won.

Portugal qualified from Group K in second place, kept back by Colombia's impressive group stage run, and have a squad that can win this tournament independent of Ronaldo. Their goalless draw with Colombia was the last group game of two teams who had already qualified and was tactically cautious throughout. The real Portugal, led by Bruno Fernandes, Bernardo Silva and Rafael Leao, is a more dynamic offensive proposition than that game suggested and they will need to show it against Croatia.

Croatia under Zlatko Dalic have built one of the great tournament pedigrees in the expanded era. Four consecutive World Cup knockout stage qualifications. Three consecutive knockout round appearances at major tournaments. A 2018 World Cup Final. A 2022 third place. And all of it built around a team that has never had the depth or the population base to explain what it achieves by conventional metrics. If Modric plays his last World Cup match on Thursday night in Toronto, it will be one of the most watched individual farewells in the sport's history. If Croatia advance, the story gets even better.

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[Scott98]

Ronaldo and Modric both potentially playing their final World Cup match on the same night in the same fixture is the footballing symmetry that gets constructed rather than designed. Both at 40-plus, both in their fifth World Cup, both having won everything at club level, both needing one more international chapter

[Sandra_29]

Croatia's tournament pedigree under Dalic is the achievement that keeps being undersold. Small nation, limited talent pool by comparison with the major footballing countries, and yet four consecutive World Cup knockout qualifications is a record that much wealthier footballing nations cannot match

[Paul73]

Portugal second in the group rather than first changes their bracket path dramatically. First would have avoided Croatia. Second puts them directly against a team with vastly more experience of deep tournament runs and a goalkeeper in Gvardiol who has arguably been the best central defender of the past two years

[BringItOnRhodes43]

The Messi comparison for Ronaldo has always obscured his actual career rather than contextualising it. He is the best right-footed wide forward in football history regardless of the comparison and a final World Cup farewell performance would be a fitting way to close that specific chapter

[Drift Sentinel]

Bruno Fernandes being the engine of Portugal's midfield control is the less romantic but more practically important story for this match. Portugal in full flow with Fernandes dictating tempo and Leao running behind are genuinely difficult to defend. Croatia's midfield without Kovacic at full fitness will need to respond

[TealBear]

BMO Field in Toronto is not the grandest venue of this World Cup but it will be full of Croatian and Portuguese diaspora supporters who have made North American cities their home. The atmosphere will be genuinely split in a way that the games in American cities with Mexican or Moroccan opponents were not

[Shane]

If both teams were to be eliminated at this stage it would be one of the great moments of entropy in a World Cup bracket, two generational talents whose nations were always expected to reach the semi-finals both going home in the round of 32 within days of each other