{"id":634265,"date":"2026-04-28T14:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/634265\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T14:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:12:14","slug":"luka-modric-croatia-confident-of-captains-recovery-for-2026-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/634265\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Modric: Croatia confident of captain&#8217;s recovery for 2026 World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic believes Luka Modric will be fit to lead his side at this summer&#8217;s World Cup after the AC Milan midfielder had surgery on a broken cheekbone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 40-year-old was injured following a clash of heads with Juventus midfielder Manuel Locatelli when their sides drew 0-0 on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Milan said Modric had suffered a &#8220;complex, multi-fragment fracture of the left zygomatic bone&#8221; and had undergone &#8220;completely successful&#8221; surgery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The San Siro side did not specify how long Modric might be out but wished him &#8220;a speedy recovery ahead of the Fifa World Cup&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The World Cup starts on 11 June and Croatia open their campaign against England on 17 June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve been talking to Luka and wished him a successful surgery and a quality and speedy recovery,&#8221; said Dalic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I am convinced that he will do everything to be ready for the World Cup, and we&#8217;ll provide full support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I am confident that the recovery will go according to plan and that Luka, as team captain, will lead us at another major competition this summer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Modric is set to miss the rest of the Serie A season as AC Milan chase a Champions League spot, with four games left to play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They are in third place on 67 points, with fourth-placed Juventus on 64 points and Como on 61 points along with Roma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic believes Luka Modric will be fit to lead his side at this summer&#8217;s World&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-634265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}