It would, however, take 20 years for Croatia to emerge from the group stage of a World Cup again, bettering the original golden generation by reaching the final in Russia in 2018. But the seeds had long been planted.
Jozak, whose own professional career was cut short by injuries, held a number of coaching roles with Dinamo Zagreb’s youth teams before at various stages becoming the club’s academy director, sports director and most notably technical director of the Croatian Football Federation (CFF).
He was still a young coach leading Dinamo’s second team when Modric joined as a 16-year-old from Zadar, having been overlooked by Hajduk Split.
“He was always a good guy, well-educated, humble,” explains Jozak. “He wasn’t a doubt, because we always saw something in him.
“But you couldn’t say ‘Listen, he’s going to be a superstar’, because he was short and skinny and how are you going to say this guy is going to be dominating the world, right?
“He was always reliable in the way that you can put him on the team, he’s not going to lose the ball where he’s not supposed to lose it. He’s always going to fight, he’s always going to run, he’s going to deliver.
“But he wasn’t even in the top three prospects at that time.”
The young midfielder, obsessed with his hair, was sent on loan to Zrinjski Mostar of the Bosnian Premier League to earn first-team exposure, before spending a season in Croatia with Inter Zapresic.
“Football is very unpredictable, personality-wise,” says Jozak. “His personality drove him. Spending one year in Bosnia made him tougher. He literally survived.
“He was a kid, he was skinny and young, but he had this drive, he had this hunger – like a bull terrier, he wanted to rip off every potential tackle and duel he was confronted with.”