What kind of city is Lucelle? The first result on the search engine put it succinctly: "Lusail – the city of Qatar's future," this is how Lucel City describes itself on its official website.
True. The plans for the city of Lucel were first published in 2005. The city is close to the Persian Gulf and seems to be at just the right distance from the capital, Doha. The high-rise buildings of Lucel City are almost entirely built around the theme of the World Cup: on the city's skyline, the crescent-shaped twin towers soar into the skyline, and inside are the official FIFA World Cup cooperation hotels in Qatar; Near the Lusail Stadium, four giant office buildings in the shape of chimneys appear in front of the road, resembling the "ideal city" painted by Italian futurist painters.
How close is 2005? In the history of a city, 17 years is like a whisker, and Lucelle is younger than Doha, Dubai and Brasilia. How far is 2005? It's enough to witness a player's entire career. Also in 2005, Luca Modric ended his loan and returned to Dinamo Zagreb; Lionel Messi scored Barca's first first-team goal against Albacete.
Modric and Messi became the protagonists of Lusail this night. This "city of the future" must first pay homage to history before defining the future. Before the match, Modric and Messi came to referee Orsato as captains of both teams, both wearing the number 10, whose first and last names are abbreviated LM.
LM10 from Rosario, representing the divinity of football.
Among the increasingly homogeneous young players in today's football, Gervadior can bring you a rare sense of nostalgia, especially after the plaid centre-back is masked, he is like a medieval warrior. In his first five games in Qatar, Gwadior was able to do almost anything, and the defensive area he held was never captured by the enemy. Facing Messi, Gervadior was still armed to the teeth, but the inspiration of genius turned into a golden arrow that hit the warrior in the eyebrow.
In the 69th minute, Messi received Alvarez to do back, first completing the ball against Gervadior on the wing, and then dribbling all the way forward, the Croatian defender was struggling to catch up behind him, but could not break the ball at Messi's feet. Messi, 35, and Gvardior, 20, raced halfway through the course, with the latter using the 50-metre track to bridge the starting position disadvantage with speed. Messi gave up racing, opted to turn around, and then came near the bottom line, completely erased Gervadior's defense, and provided Alvarez with the most ironed assist.
The confrontation between Messi and Gvardior actually had a long warning. Ten minutes before this assist, Messi received a pass from DePaul and started running from midfield, and the upper grab Gervadior did his best, and he was also helpless against the Argentine. Messi played with Enzo Fernandes and then shot from a tight angle inside the box was picked up by the goalkeeper. In fact, Guevadior was good enough in this defense, and he went up from behind in the moment before Messi's shot, so that the latter's shot did not pose the greatest threat. However, Gervadior is still quite confused: he may be the best young centre-back of the moment, but in the simple game of two goals, he is completely helpless. The showdown between Gvardior and Messi made the final victory unsuspenseful, with Modric substituted late in the game and his World Cup final with only three or four places left.
LM10 from Zadar represents the humanity of football.
The careers of Modric and Messi overlap highly on the timeline. Messi and Modric are both Ballon d'Or winners, and both have taken their national teams to World Cup finals and eventually lost to stronger opponents. At club level, Modric has won the Big Ear Cup like Messi, and more than once. After winning the Ballon d'Or in 2018, Modric has tasted almost all the accolades Messi has won – which is no small feat.
Even so, in his career, Modric has never given people the same feeling of "heavenly gods" as Messi. Like Messi, he can't control everything at the height of his competitive form, not even at the 2018 World Cup. However, Modric always has the last laugh, as was it in Real Madrid's Champions League campaign, as well as leading the Plaid Army to the World Cup.
Today's Modric seems older than he really is, thinner than official data shows, and you even worry about him falling on the field in the next moment, but he still loves to run, especially in overtime. In the 1/8 final against Japan, Modric was substituted in extra time, and it was believed that his fitness was almost exhausted. Four days later, he played a full 120 minutes in the quarterfinal, instigating his team's equalizer four minutes before the end. For the 37-year-old veteran, the stamina tank recovers faster than it is consumed.
Modric is closer to the wing than he was four years ago in this World Cup, and in combing the ball, the two old partners in the midfield, Brozovic and Kovacic, are not much less effective than him. On a tactical level, however, Modric has played a crucial role: the Croatian team is hardly able to perform at the level of the right half of the pitch, right-back Juranovic is a shortcoming in the backline, and Pašalić and Vlašic up front are also a bit awkward in this position. Rebich? Dalic didn't take him with him, but even on the club pitch, the Milan star couldn't play well on the right wing.
Modric used his experience, movement and skill to make up for the team's lack of weak side at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends to the greatest extent. In the semi-final against Argentina, Croatia gradually became unsustainable after a brilliant performance in the first 20 minutes, and the gap between the two teams in terms of physical reserves and technical ability was infinitely magnified. Modric didn't play well in this game, and a ball hit his protruding eagle hook nose is a reflection of his bleak night. Even so, Modric could still walk out of Lussell, Zagreb's talent who was seen as the hope of Croatian football, but if you go back in time to 2006 or 2008, no one could have imagined that Modric could lead Croatia so far.
In fact, there is another LM10 in Lusail tonight: Lautaro Martinez. He wears the number 10 at Inter, but can only watch from the sidelines in this match. Lautaro has been involved in Argentina's entire World Qualifier journey as the protagonist, but Julian Alvarez shines too much during the main match, and the 22-year-old seems to have become one of Messi's best partners at the national team level. It starts here and is destined to end here, no matter what the ending. With a capacity of nearly 90,000 people, the Lucerre Stadium carries one of the most exciting and ultimate challenges in football history: Messi's challenge to the World Cup.