Reporter Han Bing reported that the 36-year-old former Mr. Ballon d'Or can still walk like a fly in the Champions League. The ultra-luxurious squad against Chelsea can still be passed with a master's vision, a wonderful instep, like a cruise missile to accurately deliver the ball to Rodrigo, so that Real Madrid fans can stand up at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium to cheer him. People talk about how the 38-year-old C. Ronaldo maintained his peak competitive form, and the 35-year-old Benzema reached the most prolific season of his career, but ignored Modric.
It wasn't until the second leg of the Champions League quarter-finals in mid-last week that people saw the 36-year-old Croatian midfielder as if he had unlimited physical fitness and amazing flexibility at the age of 26, that everyone really realized: Behind the soaring Real Madrid this season, behind Benzema's overly dazzling aura, Modric is the real Galactic Fleet helmsman. Real Madrid has been injured frequently this season, with Hazard, Bale and even Asensio and Mariano, who are younger than Modric, constantly injured, but Modric is almost always healthy.
What is the mystery of the "Magic Flute"? His personal fitness coach, V. Vucetich, revealed the answer. In addition to regular personalized training and rehabilitation exercises, as well as regular and high-quality sleep, the secret is beer. Alcoholic beverages that professional players should have banned were modalities Modric's "exclusive recipe" for staying competitive.
Professional professors create "Golden Globe 10"
The 36-year-old Modric is almost the healthiest player in the Real Madrid team, joining Real Madrid for nearly 10 years, except for the 2014/15 season when he missed Real Madrid for as many as 34 games due to hamstrings and knee injuries, and the remaining 9 seasons totaled only 33 games due to injury, of which 11 were in the 2016/17 season, and the remaining 8 seasons averaged less than 3 injuries! In the 2018/19 season when he won the Ballon d'Or, the 33-year-old Modric missed 12 games due to rotation and accumulated yellow cards, and never failed to play due to injury.
At the age of 36 this season, Modric has made all 10 appearances in the Champions League, only to come on as a substitute for one. Playing as many as 300 minutes in three consecutive games against Paris and Chelsea in the knockout rounds, he brushed up on key assists in a row to help Real Madrid reach the top four. In a total of 55 games for the Real Madrid and Croatian national teams this season, Modric has missed only 7 games due to injury, in addition to 3 games with heavy colds and coronavirus infections. Playing for Real Madrid on the fourth tier since the New Year, plus a total of 19 national team matches, Modric has only missed 2: the first game of the Copa del Rey was hidden by the snow due to a minor impact injury, followed by the technical snow in the league between the two legs of the Champions League against Chelsea. During the season sprint period with a high incidence of injuries among top professional players, the 36-year-old Modric became more and more courageous.
This is already Modric's two consecutive seasons of assists in the Champions League, last year against Atalanta and Liverpool, and this year against Paris and Chelsea. Like Benzema, who has great hopes of impacting the Ballon d'Or, Modric is also an old man who talks about juvenile madness. What is the secret to the 36-year-old Golden Globe's health and high-calibre athletics? It is a training, rehabilitation and counseling program developed by Vucetit, a physical coach and counselor who has worked with him for many years.
Professor of the Department of Kinesiology and Head of the Sports Diagnostic Centre at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, which manages the training and rehabilitation of hundreds of elite athletes in 50 different sports, Vucetic is also the personal trainer of more than 20 professional players, including Modric, and he is also a lecturer in the UEFA A, B and Professional Coaching Qualification Training Courses of the Croatian National Football Coaching Academy...
As a young man, Vucetic was a Croatian track and field champion who focused on mid-range running and had a 15-year career and a deep understanding of the hardships and exhaustion of athlete training, as well as the pain of injury. He developed a very complete plan to extend Modric's career, starting with a comprehensive and complex physical function survey involving more than 40 parameters, mainly collecting data on the muscles and bones of players, as well as information on the players' daily eating habits, athletic skills explosiveness, flexibility, jumping, sprinting, agility, strength and muscular endurance.
Based on the data collected, Vucetich tailored a dedicated training and exercise rehabilitation program for Modric to improve his technical movements, training intensity, frequency, and body's ability to carry oxygen. Vucetitch's doctoral dissertation was about the oxygen-carrying capacity of the body of a professional athlete, which was his specialty. One of the key aspects of Modric's training plan is to do half an hour of elastic band warm-up before each training and competition, which will make his muscles more elastic and make the body feel like a spring.
Post-race beer is an exclusive recipe
After missing eight games due to a knee injury in the 2016/17 season, Modric began to fully cooperate with Vucetic's training and rehabilitation program, and the two sides have been working together for six years. Every Wednesday morning, Müčetich gives Modric a training and rehabilitation program that includes 20 minutes of cardiovascular training, cycling, swimming or slow walking, 10 minutes of "tire exercise", and aerobic exercise with a load intensity of 50%-60%. In addition, Modric's running is very efficient, and he has always strictly followed the requirements of Vucetitsi: always run with the soles of his feet touching the ground, the body center of gravity is in the correct position, and as long as the good use of the supporting feet is maintained, the risk of injury is much lower. Modric also paid special attention to the fact that every 15-minute period of the race, including overtime, should be kept at the same angle as possible when the feet and torso are in different positions when running due to increased lactic acid due to fatigue.
To better avoid injuries, it is also crucial to recover physically after the game. Modric pays particular attention to the quality of sleep, and he insists on falling asleep before 3 a.m. on the night of the away game, even if he usually arrives late at night, earlier than most of the top professional players who play away games.
Vucetich specifically mentioned the secret of Modric's physical recovery: beer. Real Madrid's Mr. Ballon d'Or often drinks a beer or two after the game, because the low content of alcohol will relax both physically and mentally, and beer also has some beneficial ingredients for the body. After that, Modric begins his metabolism with sleep or light exercise, oxygenates the blood, and digests the catabolites. These metabolites accumulate in the athlete's body much more after up to 120 minutes of competition than in 90 minutes of competition, requiring more timely metabolism.
In addition, Vucettic attaches great importance to the psychology of the players. He would give the players a psychological test of 16 questions, and it would be different every week. He asks the player to choose an animal based on his feelings, and then sends the animal photo to the player to give the player enough psychological cues. Vucetitic used animals to refer to players, changing their perception of themselves and boosting their self-confidence, though he declined to say what animal Modric chose.
Vucettic also attaches great importance to the football IQ of players, especially midfielders, such as when to observe the situation on the pitch, the speed of making decisions, the speed of solving problems... Modric is the best player in the world in this regard. This is also part of the training, through regular training so that his brain thinks significantly faster than others, the brain with the body, legs and feet more tacitly, and even the formation of muscle memory.
The 8 types of training determine occupational longevity
Vucetich classifies Modric's training to maintain a healthy state into 8 aspects: healthy lifestyle, physical parameters, motor skills training, accumulation of exercise knowledge, physical fitness, aerobic and anaerobic training, cognition and decision-making ability, and finally psychological states that are closely related to society, economy and even family. Vucetich particularly emphasized the role of Modric's wife, Vanya: "Behind Modric's near-perfect regular training is the well-organized family that Vania gave him. In a home that is comfortable and peaceful enough, the body can be completely relaxed, which is very important for the top players to continue their professional lives. ”
Compared to other fitness coaches, who emphasize physical training, athletic rehabilitation and nutritional intake, Vucetitich pays more attention to the psychological state of the players: "Players with less calm family environments have a greater mental burden and are more physically tired. "It is very important for the person in charge of the nutritional intake of the player to live with the player, he can always observe the mental and physical changes of the player, meet these needs in time, and benefit the health of the player."
Vucetidch stressed that in order to extend the top sporting status as long as possible, players must sacrifice most of their private lives. Modric only goes untrained for almost 10 days a year, which requires willpower beyond ordinary people. Like Prossinecki 20 years ago, he was the best midfielder, but now football is faster, more confrontational and more dynamic. Almost all of the top athletes have personal fitness coaches, and Vucetit is very supportive of this, and personalized training is important for the top players. Last summer, for example, he let Modric play tennis and swim in the sea to keep himself in shape and muscle.
Vucetitch believes that the most convenient training tool is the elastic band, and he also stresses that the use of fragmented time training is more important: players immediately wake up in pajamas for 15-20 minutes, do squats when brushing their teeth, and then push-ups. Elastic bands can help players better stretch muscle fibers, prepare muscles and prevent injuries. For the last seven or eight years, Modric has been exercising with elastic bands, whether at home, on the training ground or before games, so his injuries, especially muscle injuries, are rare.
As for how old can Modric play? Vucetich's answer is: at 40 years old, you can still see croatia's no. 10 in great form in the Champions League, the League of Nations and even the European Championship.