Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modrić have shared some of football’s biggest nights.

On Thursday, they meet again in Toronto, but this time the mood is different. Portugal face Croatia in the World Cup round of 32, and for one of the two captains, it could be the final match of a World Cup career that has stretched across generations.

Ronaldo is 41. Modrić is 40. Neither has formally said goodbye to international football, but the stage, the age and the stakes all point in the same direction.

One of them will move on. The other may leave the World Cup for the last time.

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A meeting loaded with history

According to El Mundo, the meeting between Portugal and Croatia carries the feeling of a final dance for two players who shaped an era together.

Their careers are linked most strongly through Real Madrid, where they played together from 2012 to 2018. In that period, Ronaldo and Modrić were central to one of the most successful sides in European football history.

They won four Champions League titles together, including three in a row, and shared the pitch in 222 matches for the club.

Described by The Guardian, Modrić is the central midfielder Ronaldo has played with more than any other in his career.

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Their relationship was built on talent, but also on discipline. Both became symbols of the modern elite footballer, careful with preparation, relentless with recovery and unwilling to give ground to age.

Two captains still carrying the weight

Ronaldo and Modrić remain far more than ceremonial figures.

Ronaldo has already made history as the first player to score at six different World Cups. Portugal still lean on him as their reference point in attack, even as debate continues over how much the team must adapt around him.

Modrić, meanwhile, continues to direct Croatia from midfield. He has started all three of Croatia’s group-stage matches at this tournament and recently became the oldest player to assist a goal at a World Cup.

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According to Onda Cero, Modrić admitted after Croatia’s win over Ghana that he knows time is running out.

“I know I am at an age where the end is getting closer,” he said.

It was not presented as a farewell speech, but it sounded like a player fully aware of where he stands.

Croatia know the pressure has changed

For Croatia, the pressure around Modrić has been building for years.

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The country reached the World Cup final in 2018 and the semi-finals in 2022, achievements that changed expectations around a national team from a country of fewer than four million people.

Modrić knows those memories can become a burden.

“People expect things from us that are not real,” he said.

He added that Croatia’s own success had also created pressure from within, because the squad has taught itself and its supporters to believe it can survive almost anything.

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That is part of the Modrić story. Croatia have spent years refusing to accept the limits placed on them.

Portugal and Croatia arrive with doubts

This is not a meeting between two flawless teams.

Portugal finished second in their group after drawing with DR Congo and Colombia, although they did beat Uzbekistan 5-0. Croatia also advanced after a mixed group stage, losing to England before beating Panama and Ghana.

According to El País, both teams have reached the knockout stage carrying questions about their football and about how much influence their veteran leaders can still have.

That does not make the match smaller.

It may make it more human.

Ronaldo and Modrić are not meeting as untouchable figures at the height of their physical powers. They are meeting as two players still trying to impose themselves on a tournament that is slowly preparing to move on without them.

Toronto gets a rare World Cup moment

The setting has only added to the attention.

Toronto will host the match in front of a crowd expected to include large Portuguese and Croatian communities. Interest has pushed ticket prices sharply upward, with El País reporting that resale listings had reached as high as 30,000 Canadian dollars.

For many supporters, the price reflects more than a knockout match.

It is a chance to see two of the great players of the last two decades on the same World Cup pitch, possibly for the final time.

Portugal against Croatia already had sporting weight. Ronaldo against Modrić gives it something else.

A sense of history closing in.