A documentary about wolves in Jesenice, Croatia was filmed by Pavle Balenovic between 1989 and 1990, featuring a young Luka Modric at the age of five. In the documentary excerpt shared by Balenovic in 2018, Modric can be seen herding goats with great success.
Balenovic highlights that the Real Madrid and Croatia midfielder was one of the key figures in the documentary's story.
He explained: "From my childhood I was impressed by nature and animals. I admired the wild animals, wolves especially. As I started to travel, I gathered a decent knowledge and experience. I met people from the places where wolves lived. Down to the south by the old stone road the house of Modric was located."
"The Modric family, they used to be quite decent, nice people. I visited them whenever I went filming the wildlife in the mountains. So I took the shots of my friend and his son collecting their herd of goats, closing the pen and some scenes directed as it was planned for editing a wolf documentary."
"It was back in 1990 just a while before the war destroyed their home. The war changed everything and I haven’t seen any more. They moved away. Then just a few years ago I got some information on who the small boy collecting his father's herd in my episode is."
"That boy became a famous Croatian football player - Luka Modric. "He haven't seen these shots because this is the first time they are published. After the war a lot of mines were left what destroyed the image of whole the mountain area. Today the area changed even more."
