Luka Modric showed his class by FaceTiming a 6-year-old Ukrainian boy who lost both his parents in the Russian invasion.
Ilya Kostushevych is a huge fan of the football team Shakhtar Donetsk. His mother and father were killed when Russia attacked the city of Maripol, where he lived with his family. This has caused him the worst pain he could ever imagine.
Tragic events have left him without a parent, but the young boy is as brave as ever and still has a smile on his face.
And this week, he got a wonderful surprise. Darijo Srna, who used to play for Shakhtar and is now the club’s director of football, spent some time with Ilya.
He set up a phone call with his fellow Croat, Luka Modric, who is one of the best midfielders in the world and won the 2018 Ballon d’Or.
The Real Madrid star, who had just won his third Champions League, talked to the boy, and the video that was posted online is very sweet.
Ilya has been staying with a Ukrainian couple who left Slovyansk: Volodymyr and Maria Bespaliy. After getting to know him well, they have offered to raise him as their own son.
“I told him there was a terrible war going on,” Maria told rferl.org.
“Things like that do happen, though. I told her, “Don’t worry, you’re not alone. We’ll take care of you.” If you want, we will love you and be your family. We’ll be like your parents. Your mom and dad have gone to heaven. They are happy as they look down on you,” Maria said.
Modric can understand Ilya’s story. When he was the same age, his grandfather and six other civilians were killed on his front porch by Serb rebels.
After their house burned down, the family had to move into the Kolovare Hotel in Zadar and become refugees.
But the war was still going on, and when Modric was young, he heard grenades going off in the warzone.
“No one ever benefits from war,” Modric told The Guardian.
“At that time, I wrote that. After that, I have nothing bad to say about anyone. So, that’s all. What went down, went down. It is what it is, and it’s too bad he’s not here. When there is war, bad things happen. I don’t hate anyone or, I don’t know, feel anything else about them. It was something I had to go through in my life.
This stuff can either make you stronger or break you. I chose the other way, to get stronger and build my character,” Modric said.
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