Two of international football’s 200 club have had parallel careers with their countries, but will this be their last meeting?

Can you remember what you were doing on 1 March 2006? Perhaps you were at Anfield, watching England beat Uruguay 2-1. You might have seen Switzerland put three goals past Scotland at Hampden Park.

Or you might have watched Luka Modric make his debut for Croatia. They beat Argentina 3-2, with Lionel Messi scoring his first international goal. The same evening, Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice in a 3-0 Portugal victory against Saudi Arabia, no doubt dreaming of the day he would live and work in the country.

When it was all done, and Ante Budimir had rescued Croatia’s World Cup campaign with the lone goal in a tight match against Panama, 25 Croatians donned black T-shirts over their match kits and warm-up tops.

“Infinite Legacy,” read the T-shirts, printed with the number 200 and an image of Luka Modric. He was the 26th man, but he had quickly taken his off after his teammates had flung him in the air a few times.

From Zagreb to Wembley and Moscow, the Croatia great has derailed the Three Lions on many occasions. Now he’s ready for one last dance in Dallas

When Luka Modric first played against England, Tony Blair was still in office. Arsenal had just moved from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium, Italy were newly crowned world champions and Pep Guardiola retired as a player after a six-month spell in Mexico with Dorados. Twitter was less than three months old and Facebook had been made fully public earlier that year. Amy Winehouse’s album Back to Black was about to be released, while the much-hyped film Borat was coming to cinemas.

Football fans in England – and in Croatia – may recognise which game it was solely from that last bit of pop culture history: the European Championship qualifier in Zagreb on 11 October 2006.