Against Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric offers substance over star power

Messi and Ronaldo will still dominate the top of the game, but that dominance no longer feels as total after the Croatian was named Fifa's player of the year

The giveaway was when news broke that Cristiano Ronaldo wasn’t turning up in London, and it means something has finally given way at the top of the game.

Luka Modric has won Fifa’s ‘The Best’ trophy, marking the first time in 11 years that one of football’s major individual awards has not gone to either the Portuguese or Lionel Messi.

That is refreshing for a few reasons, and not just the change of name. It is because it is evidently no longer about the name. Although Ronaldo and Messi have clearly been the two best players on the planet in all of that time as regards talent, it didn’t always logically follow they were always the most deserving of such awards in terms of maximising that talent, or translating it into team overachievement.

It sometimes felt that the duo were constantly receiving these awards due to who they were - and the fact that they would always be included on ballot papers regardless - as much as what they did.

It’s impossible to say that about Modric. A hugely respected player but not a glamorous one, he has rightfully been rewarded for having what is arguably been the widest and deepest influence across the game in a given year in decades.

That is genuinely no exaggeration. It is a long time since a player has won this award and been so essential in both the major international feat and the major club competition. You arguably have to go back to Hristo Stoichkov with Bulgaria and Barcelona in 1994, or perhaps Johan Cruyff with Netherlands and Barcelona 20 years before that.

Unlike 2016-17, Cristiano Ronaldo was not this time Real Madrid’s defining or decisive player in their Champions League win. That was Modric, whose passing ability and control effectively imposes a philosophy on the team. He was still there making everything move, even when Ronaldo stopped scoring after the quarter-final, and has probably been the next most important player in these four Champions League victories. So this is just recognition.

The outstanding international team feat of the year meanwhile, in terms of a side reaching a level of achievement far above what they have been reasonably expected to, was Croatia. And there was Modric at the centre of that again, to a far greater degree than an ultimately injured Ronaldo with Portugal in Euro 2016.

Luka Modric has already won the Uefa Player of the Year award (AP)

There was Modric scoring the brilliant game-clinching and group-clinching goal against Argentina, the essential penalties in shoot-outs against both Denmark and Russia - with that all the more creditable because of how he rose from a miss against Kasper Schmeichel - and then in the centre turning the semi-final against England.

Within that display, adding an even greater depth to his great year, was how he symbolised and emphasised a significant truth in international football. Central midfield remains the key area of the pitch. If you have that, you have control. If you have Modric, you have total command.

That he is actually the first bona fide central midfielder - as opposed to a playmaker - to win such an award since Lothar Matthaus in 1990 only adds to his win, emphasising how his level of performance has been so overwhelmingly good so as to overcome the usual parameters with this award.

It has been about substance, rather than star power. It is why his triumph has transcended his own performance.

The midfielder played a crucial role in driving his team to the final at this summer's World Cup (REUTERS)

It does add a twist that the man to eventually dislodge Ronaldo and Messi from the top of such podiums is not a young usurper, but a player who is actually older than both.

But then this is quite an old-fashioned victory, one befitting the old Ballon D’Or.

It might still usher in a new era, because a decade of dominance is finally broken. Messi and Ronaldo will still dominate the top of the game, but that dominance no longer feels as total. This year, it couldn’t compete with Modric’s control of a pitch.