On Tuesday morning, during training with the German national football team, something truly unbelievable happened. To warm up, the players were asked to pass the ball to each other in a predetermined sequence. Toni Kroos completed the exercise with his usual precision. But once he played the ball three or four meters past its intended destination.
It happens. But it’s always something special with Kroos.
The Real Madrid midfielder, now 34 years old, has long had a reputation for being infallible on the football pitch. Or at least almost infallible. Ten years in Spain are behind him, and in each of his ten seasons at Real, his pass accuracy was at least 92 percent. In the last two, it was even 95 percent.
“You can hear a pass from him,” Stefan Reinartz, his former teammate from his Leverkusen days, once said. Kroos’ ball whirs and purrs. It is not least because of this skill that he has returned to the national team after a break of almost three years. The European Championship, which begins for the German team on Friday with the group match against Scotland, will be the last act of his formidable career.
Of course, the ending would be almost too cheesy. I would still take it.
Toni Kroos on winning the European Championship title at the end of his career
There could be seven more games – ideally assuming that the Germans reach the final at the European Championships on home soil. “Of course I’m hungry,” says Kroos.
At the end of his club career, he won the Champions League with Real Madrid ten days ago. At the end of his career in the national team, he wants to win the European Championship. That is still missing from his bulging trophy cabinet. Such an ending would be “almost too cheesy,” he says. “I would still take it.”
© dpa/Christian Charisius
Julian Nagelsmann discussed the idea of his comeback with Kroos just one week after taking office as national coach. But it took several months before it was finalized. Kroos himself was torn, and his return was by no means a foregone conclusion. Felix Kroos recently said that his brother told him just one week before the final decision: “I’m not doing it.”
Over the course of his long career, Toni Kroos has not only been admired by everyone, let alone loved by everyone. But the critical voices have long since fallen silent. The results of his career, which include six triumphs in the Champions League and the 2014 World Cup title, have long since put him above all doubt.
Ever since it became clear that he would be playing in the European Championship, his fourth in total, he has had in mind “that I want to win this tournament,” says Kroos. “If I didn’t have the fantasy that it was possible, then I wouldn’t have done it.”
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International matches Kroos has played since his debut in March 2010. Ideally, he will add another seven.
Physically, Nagelsmann reported, Kroos is in the best shape he has had for years despite his advanced footballing age: “He has zero problems, no aches and pains, he is in top shape. He is also able to play through every game.” His body feels like steel.
It is the result of a highly professional lifestyle. Kroos regularly puts in extra shifts on the ergometer – in the steam bath. Over time, he said on Tuesday, he has paid more and more attention to his body in order to become even more robust.
This is also because Kroos has moved further back on the field over the years: from playmaker at number ten to number eight to defensive midfield. “I wanted to give my game that extra something to be stable,” he says.
© imago/Laci Perenyi/imago/Laci Perenyi
Toni Kroos – as the first three international matches after his return have shown – gives the team a lot of what it needs: stability, mental robustness, the desire to succeed, a clear order on the pitch and an overall better feeling.
Antonio Rüdiger, a teammate at Real, recently said that he had misjudged Kroos when he first started with the national team. He now knows him better: “He is a quiet leader, a fine person. Not someone who talks a lot, but always leads the way.”
Thanks to his unparalleled ball skills, Kroos still leads primarily with his feet. He wants his teammates to feel comfortable on the pitch, to give them the feeling “that this isn’t all that dramatic: so that they play what they can and aren’t inhibited.” That’s how he defines leadership. “Be careful: if there’s a problem, I’m here. If there’s any doubt about what you’re doing with the ball, give it to me! Then everything will be fine.”
The European Championship in their own country will inevitably confront the team with high expectations and a certain amount of pressure. Toni Kroos, the stoic Mecklenburg native, says that you have to “enjoy this pressure to a certain extent”. “In the end, it’s just football.”