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Toni Kroos once said performance data was overrated. He’s right.
Even as he left the pitch at the Allianz Arena last night, with the crowd rising to applaud a player who had been whistled mercilessly on his previous visit to Munich six weeks earlier, appreciation went far beyond the staggering numbers that flashed up on the big screen.
This wasn’t just a player completing 100 passes out of a possible 101 as his Germany team swept to a 5-1 victory in the opening game of Euro 2024. This was a 34-year-old, one of the sport’s modern greats, putting on a masterclass in the final weeks of his playing career, intent on enjoying every second of this tournament before retiring — he hopes — at the very top.
Watching him stroke passes around with such rare composure, intelligence and pinpoint accuracy, it was hard not to think he is leaving the stage too soon. Surely he could keep doing this for years.
But his mind is made up. He has already brought down the curtain on his club career at Real Madrid with a victory over Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final at Wembley a fortnight ago. The only remaining challenge is to bow out by winning Euro 2024 with Germany.
“People said I could easily play a few more years — and maybe that’s the case,” he said when he announced his decision last month. “But I don’t want to reach the point where people say, ‘Pffff, why is he still playing?’. So I chose the best moment. And the best moment is now.”
Toni Kroos’ class was appreciated by his teammates (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
That is the thing about Kroos. He always chooses the right moment, the right pass, weighted just right.
He is the playmaker’s player. Former Argentina international Juan Roman Riquelme famously likened him to Roger Federer, saying he is so elegant on the pitch that “he doesn’t sweat, doesn’t get dirty, he can go out, play, go home and go home again, not even needing to have a bath.” Former Spain midfielder Santi Cazorla has described him as a player who is so far ahead in his reading of the game that he “doesn’t need to run”.
At the pre-match news conference on Thursday night, Germany captain Ilkay Gundogan was asked about a tendency among some fans to disparage his team-mate as “Querpass Toni”, roughly equivalent to “Sideways Toni”.
Gundogan laughed. “In my opinion, that’s not a bad thing,” he said, “although of course I realise that people don’t mean it in a positive way. I know how important these (lateral) passes can be, which look very simple. I’m most fascinated by the things that look very simple but are effective. That’s my game too, to be honest.”
Toni Kroos’ passing artistry is a sight to behold (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
The Kross pass that got people salivating during the game against Scotland came in the 10th minute, a diagonal ball from just short of the halfway line, picking out Joshua Kimmich, who in turn picked out Florian Wirtz to open the scoring and set the tone for an evening when everything clicked into place for this Germany team.
But it is probably no exaggeration to say he has hit 1,000 passes like that in his career, including another two last night. A perfectionist such as Kroos might point to the fact that he slipped while making that particular pass and that, as a result, it took a split-second longer to reach Kimmich than it might otherwise have done. By his standards, it was nothing special.
What was special was the extent to which Kroos controlled this game for 80 minutes until he was given a well-earned rest. It was the calmness, the composure, the vision and the way he threaded everything together. You could just as easily cite the pass he played to Gundogan in the 19th minute, picking him out through a crowded midfield in the build-up to Jamal Musiala’s goal, or any number of passes — some long, some short — that left you with the feeling that he had the opposition players on strings.
Scott McTominay and John McGinn, in the Scotland midfield, couldn’t get near him and in truth it was a wretched night for Steve Clarke’s team. But this is just what Kroos does. To go back to the numbers, he completed 95 passes for Real Madrid in the Champions League final against Dortmund a fortnight ago, 95 against Bayern Munich in the semi-final second leg (despite being substituted midway through the second half), 98 in his final derby against Atletico Madrid.
There was a different kind of Kroos masterclass on this ground in the Champions League semi-final first leg on April 30. On that occasion he was part of a Madrid team that struggled at times to keep their heads above water against Bayern, but he was still imperious. His assist for Vinicius Jnr’s opening goal in that game — pointing out the gap to his team-mate and then dissecting the Bayern defence with a slide-rule pass — was truly something to behold.
But again it was not about the pass or indeed the number of passes. It was about the rhythm. It was an uncomfortable night for Madrid and it could easily have been more so for Kroos against his former club, pressed by his young opponents and jeered by Bayern supporters who haven’t forgiven him for leaving 10 years ago, but he rose above it, always calm, always composed.
It was a very different atmosphere last night. Now in the final weeks of his illustrious career, representing his country in a tournament on home soil, Kroos was lauded from the very start. Every time Germany were awarded a free kick, there were chants of “Toni, Toni, Toni”. The German public — and certainly those in Munich — have embraced the Kroos farewell tour.
Toni Kroos was everywhere in Germany’s win over Scotland (Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images)
Kroos retired from international football after the last European Championship, hurt by criticism of his performance in the round-of-16 defeat by England but saying that his decision was driven by a desire to spend more time with his family and dedicate the rest of his career to Madrid.
His u-turn in February, announcing he had been persuaded to return to the squad by coach Julian Nagelsmann, was unexpected. Nagelsmann said on Thursday that it had taken three months to persuade Kroos, at which point the player told him, “Yes, I will be part of it. Let’s rock.”
Let’s rock? Rather than the “heavy metal football” of Jurgen Klopp’s famous description, Kroos might be likened to a classical musician — or indeed to the conductor. He is ready to play the hits on this farewell tour and to leave the stage on the ultimate high, as a winner again, with the crowd longing for more. This is the encore. Enjoy it while you can.
(Top photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)