This is my new series covering the World Cup. I will pick talking points from each gameday to write about. I will most likely write one or two daily posts until the final. Today, I will be talking about the match between Brazil and Croatia.

When You Know How To Win

We might have forgotten the reason that Croatia was a finalist in the 2018 World Cup. It wasn't for one reason but a big part was because Croatia simply knows how to win. You could always praise certain players or the coach, but the fact of the matter is, once this squad gets together, they just grow a team wit that always allows them to get just what they need.

Croatia made going into extra time a superpower all thanks to that team wit. Once the second half ended of the match, I personally forgot about all the strength Brazil had going into the match. All I was thinking is that Brazil is in Croatia's territory now.

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In the Arab world, we have a saying, "They know where the shoulder gets eaten", which means that they simply know the right way to win.

Croatia went into this match having only won one match, against Canada, all the other matches ended in a draw, and with Japan, it went all the way to penalties, which counts as a draw. If there's one team that could be described as efficient it would be Croatia.

Brazil losing control

Going into the match, we knew Brazil will be the better team, the aggressive team, and we did see that. However, we could see frustration slowly getting under the Brazilians' skin. It almost didn't make sense how Brazil wasn't breaking through more often. That got Brazil frustrated.

What Tete did was also weird with the substitution of Vinicius Junior. He also made it worse by bringing in a right winger for the position killing Rodrygo's best features while also killing his left side.

Brazil couldn't keep the aggressiveness the same as their flanks got downgraded after the first half, and finally, their best striker was subbed out of the game. Tete subbed so many players that he effectively put a team of players unfamiliar with each other on the field long enough. Tete tried his substitutions twice this tournament, one ended with Brazil losing, and the other halted their progress.

We saw coaches like Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti keep their players on despite chasing a result to the point of frustration. But the fact is, if the players on the bench are a downgrade to the ones on the pitch and they don't provide a solution, you might as well just keep them on the bench until you know your best course of action.

Rodrygo is a slower, less skilful, less efficient player than Vinicius Junior, therefore, there really wasn't a reason for Rodrygo to replace Vinicius, especially since Vinicius wasn't really tired. Just because you have the depth it doesn't really mean that you should use it. Especially when you remember that Brazil did rest its stars, including the goalkeeper during the previous match.

Brazil couldn't keep the rhythm or pace they wanted, they couldn't keep their aggressiveness going because there was a man constantly changing the shape. A lot of Brazil's attacks depend on Neymar dropping into the area between the midfield and Vinicius, the latter then occupies runs into the space either in front of him or into the box. When you replace Vinicius with a winger with different style, it makes Neymar's runs useless until Neymar and the new winger work out a system since Brazil's offensive depends on the players' creativity, as I said before.

With constant changes, you start to lose control and, most importantly, time that you could have used to attack and create better chances. The other reason for Brazil's loss of rhythm and control is Luka Modrić, which leads to my final point of this post.

Is Luka Modrić the greatest midfielder of all time?

Modrić played 105 passes against Brazil with the accuracy of 90.5%. Against a team like Brazil, pressuring the way Brazil does, that's very difficult to do. Even for a specialist like Xavi when it comes to passes, that's a very tough number. Add to that, Modric was the player with most movement in Croatia's final third. Also, Modrić was the player keeping Casimiro in check, forcing Tete to change his tactics completely. Modric was doing all of that at the age of 37, on the back of 4 games played almost fully, including one that went to penalties.

Don't get me wrong, Croatia was by no means a one player team, in fact, Croatia's goalkeeper was the man of the match for me, and not Modrić. However, aside from the flashy skills, Modrić have done for Croatia this match than Zidane have done for France in 2006 against Brazil, except Modrić actually did a lot of defensive work as well which Zidane rarely did.

As a football fan who admired Zidane, loved Xavi's command of the pitch, and enjoyed Andrés Iniesta's paintings, I find it difficult to argue back against people who say that the Croatian is the best of all in midfield. Modrić is an all-rounded midfielder, which is more than I could say about the rest. Zidane and Iniesta might have been more skillful, and Xavi passed better, but Modrić has all of that and more.

To phrase it better, if there was a list of requirements from a midfield, Modrić would score 8-9 out of 10 in all of them, while the rest might have a 9.5 or a 10 in a few, but would also have a 5-6 out of 10 in a few areas. Modrić might simply be the greatest midfielder of all time.

If you pause the screen for many times when Modrić received a ball, as an outlet, and you just look at his options with the benefit of all the time in the world and a better view of the pitch, you may or may not find an option, Modrić found options and solutions in less than seconds each time.

I beg everyone reading this post to rewatch the game and just keep their eye at Modrić. I know people love goal contributions and those types of numbers, but this might have been Modrić's best game ever and I honestly believe if people would rewatch the game and ponder his touches, they might come off thinking the same. I also beg watching him play while keeping in mind his age.

Baring in mind how many years he spent competing at the highest levels of football, Luka Modrić is my pick for the greatest midfielder of all time.