Kroos and Modric reply to UEFA: Better together

Toni Kroos and Luka Modric will go down in history as one of the best midfield pairings Real Madrid have ever had, but a tweet from UEFA's official Champions League account on Twitter provoked a response from the pair.

Following their excellent performances in Los Blancos' 3-1 win against Atalanta on Tuesday night, the account wanted to know which player fans would rather have.

"Kroos or Modric?" the official Champions League account tweeted.

"Better together," replied Modric, while Kroos wrote "AND", making clear that there is no need to choose one or the other when you can have both.

"They are amazing," Zinedine Zidane said of Modric and Kroos after the Atalanta victory.

Since the Croatian and German first played together on August 8, 2014, they have gone on to play 225 matches together, totally 16,455 minutes for Real Madrid.

There are only five players that Modric's career that he has played with more often than Kroos: Karim Benzema (319 games), Gareth Bale (299, split between Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur), Sergio Ramos (281), Raphael Varane (264) and Marcelo (232).

The other way around, Kroos has Modric in fourth place in terms of games played together: Thomas Muller (268, split between Germany and Bayern Munich), Benzema (262) and Varane (244).

As a partnership, together with Casemiro, they have become one of the world's best midfield trios, while they have also lifted three Champions League trophies together: 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18.

In their last game together, against Atalanta, they shared 44 passes between each other: 23 from Kroos to Modric and 21 from Modric to Kroos. Needless to say, they were the players who found each other the most in the match.