Igor Stimac said Martin Baturina will be the player Croatia turn to when Luka Modric is done, putting the 23-year-old at the center of the team’s midfield future just days before their opening game against England in Dallas. He framed the move as a natural handover, not a gamble.
The timing matters because Croatia are heading into Group L with questions that are bigger than one player. Stimac said Baturina comes off a good second half of the season with Como and that Petar Susic, 22, has also been brought in with strength and ability. He cast the pair as help for Modric in the way Rodrigo de Paul and Julian Alvarez covered for Lionel Messi in Qatar, a comparison that underlines how much responsibility Croatia expect the younger midfielders to absorb.
That endorsement is more than a compliment. Stimac said Baturina will be the one to put his feet into Modric’s big boots once the captain is finished, while Susic is viewed as a similar player to Marcelo Brozovic, perhaps even higher quality. He said Susic can cover the pitch in the same way Brozovic did, with the kind of running that can stretch to 16-17km per game. For a side built for control and resistance, those are not decorative traits. They are the profile of the next midfield.
Yet Stimac also admitted Croatia are not in their best moment. Modric, Josko Gvardiol and Mateo Kovacic have all been returning after long injury breaks, with Modric’s season ending in April after a cheekbone fracture that needed surgery and Kovacic missing a chunk of 2025-26 with an ankle injury that also needed surgery. Gvardiol was away from January to May because of a leg injury. In other words, Croatia are talking about transition while still trying to recover the shape of the team that made that transition necessary.
Even so, Stimac insisted the core of the side remains hard to rattle. He said Croatia would be a team no one would want to face in the knockout rounds and pointed to the way they have handled pressure before, including winning on penalties against Japan in Qatar, drawing level with Brazil in extra-time before winning the tie-breaker and beating England in extra-time in 2018 after going behind early. That history explains why he said a point against England would be acceptable, even if a loss could quickly change the tone because Ghana are waiting next.
The immediate test comes on Wednesday in Dallas, and Modric’s role may be the sharpest sign of where Croatia stand between eras. Stimac said Modric should start because of how important he is to the team, then added that he will begin on the bench for the sake of the team. The answer to the bigger question is already forming around him: Baturina is not being asked to imitate Modric yet, only to inherit what comes after him. That is a much harder job, and Croatia are starting it before the old one has even ended.
