Messi is the best, but this year is Modric year, Rakitic said

News24xx.com - Ivan Rakitic did not deny that Lionel Messi was the best footballer of all time. But in 2018, Luka Modric is the king. The debate over who the world's best players came back after FIFA announced three names of the winning candidates. Surprisingly there is no name Lionel Messi or a French player who has just become a world champion.

Modric with Cristiano Ronaldo and Mohamed Salah will fight to be the best on September 24th. Criticism came as the candidates were not fully fit to be there, especially Salah who did not get the title at all at the club and national team level.

Rakitic said that Messi remained the best despite failing to become a candidate who won the title. However, Rakitic did not deny that Modric, his colleague at the Croatian national team, deserved to get the achievements.

Modric, who was previously ranked as the UEFA 2018 best player, took Real Madrid to get the Champions League title and advanced Croatia to the World Cup final. "You can appear better or not in one season" Rakitic told FourFourTwo. "For me, the best player in the world today and maybe all the time is Leo Messi. It's easy, you ask that to nine out of 10 children, surely the answer is the same."

"But I think this is a year of injury, I think Leo and people know, he (Modric) deserves this award. Since he received the award of the best European player ... I don't know what to do to be the best player the world, after what he achieved so far" he said.

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