Every long-term football fan remembers how France Zinedine Zidane left the football fields.
The legend, who arrived at the last tournament of his career with a golden cleat, reached the championship gate in the 2006 World Championships in Germany. Instead of a happy ending, that fairy tale had a shocking ending – Zidane got a red card in the final, and France lost.
Toni Kroos was then 16 years old. He was just moving to Bayeux Munich’s junior academy to build his own career, which turned out to be amazing.
– I remember the 2006 World Cup tournament with great warmth. I was in the fan zone watching the German games. It was a special summer that we can hopefully repeat,” Kroos said For FourFourTwo under the games.
You can hardly expect Zidane-like bursts from him. However, when it comes to shoe fashion, the look is similar. The model is more than ten years old and is no longer manufactured – except for Kroos, who wants the exact same shape, weight and leather surface for his feet as always before.
Already in connection with Germany’s first match, the photos showed the gold-colored buttons of the most talked about player of the tournament host. When viewed from one side, the name of the shoe model embroidered on the heel looks mistakenly like the Spanish word for gold, oro.
It can reflect Kroos’ touch on the ball or the trophy cabinet. The European Championships are the last show of the respected artist. The shoes are a thing of the past, but Kroos has kept up with the evolution of the game.
– Kroos will go down in history as one of football’s best deep-lying playmakers, Urheilu’s expert Juho Rantala your line already at the start of the tournament.
Toni Kroos’ golden studded shoes photographed on the European Championship turf.
No one expected Kroos to be in the tournament. He had finished his national team career after the 2021 European Championships. His grips had been barked at. Ex-captain of Germany Lothar Matthäus said that Kroos’ time had passed and he would no longer belong at the top of international football.
Germany head coach Julian Nagelsmann disagreed. Last November, he picked up the phone with hope and was going to persuade Kroos to come back.
– It took time to persuade him. He wanted to know what we would change in the national team. He told me early on that he will only join the team if he feels we can win anything, Nagelsmann said at the start of the Games.
– He wanted to know what the next steps and decisions would be. I told them to him and then he said he would come along.
Real Madrid keep the position open
Kroos has spent the last ten years at Real Madrid. The world’s biggest club is home to the world’s best players, so it has been difficult for Kroos to imagine any other address.
Previously, he had excelled in Germany’s biggest club. At the age of 17, Kroos became the youngest player in Bayern Munich’s club history. In his first appearance, he scored two goals.
As a youngster, he sought speed on loan at Bayern Leverkusen. At the age of 19, he was already Bayern’s driving force. Everything that was possible to win in German club football had been won by the age of 23.
He received a hero’s welcome for his last home game in Madrid.
Both teams formed a walk of honor. The Real Madrid players wore Kroos’ jerseys.
Real Madrid supporters presented massive sheets thanking Kroos for his services as a club legend.
In the songs, they confessed their love for the German artist, whose children were crying in TV pictures in the final moments of the match.
At the initiative of Croatian hero Luka Modric, the players lifted Kroos on their hands and threw him into the air.
Kroos and his family got the Santiago Bernabéu pitch to their own use for the last round of honor.
– This was special. I knew it would happen today. Everything that happened before, during and after the match felt special, he said on the club’s YouTube channel at the end of the night.
At that time, there was one more away game left, and the end was as perfect as the beginning.
In the last match he played in the club team, Kroos created four goal chances. His pass success rate that night was 97. His corner kick led to the winning goal. As the others mingled, Kroos was left with his hands on his hips from the hit. He touched the ball more than anyone else, acting as Real Madrid’s conductor.
And the match was the Champions League final. Kroos was replaced from the field as the entire stadium showed its approval. He said goodbye to Real Madrid and the club soccer Champions League trophy on his head.
– I am proud that I found the right moment for my solution and was able to choose it myself. My goal was always to end my career at the peak of my abilities, Kroos had said when explaining his decision.
Coaching Real Madrid Carlo Ancelotti immediately hoped that Kroos couldn’t bear to stay away from the playing fields. The Italian’s comments only underlined the importance of the 34-year-old – and at the same time, the fact that Kroos is quitting on his own terms.
He had already kept everyone in suspense last year when his contract expired, but decided to continue for one more season. Few players are promised a place at Real Madrid if they feel like it.
– Unfortunately, he decided to quit. He is German by choice but will continue to live in Madrid. I told him that if he changes his mind in the fall, one phone call and we’ll start again, Ancelotti said.
For Kroos, the Champions League victory was already the sixth. Instead of a prize locker, a prize room is needed.
He won the Spanish championship four times, once also the Spanish Cup. He won the German championship three times, as well as the German cup. He has won the world championship of club teams in two clubs a total of six times.
In 2014, he helped Germany become world champions and was named to the tournament’s all-star team. Among other things, Kroos scored two goals and assisted one in the memorable 7-1 semifinal victory over Brazil.
Full turn at the first touch
Kroos returned to the national team in March. Then Germany approached the home games apathetically. The only value competitions played without him had ended in elimination in the group stage. In the last matches, there were players from Turkey and Austria.
It was around that time that Nagelsmann contacted Kroos.
With him, Germany has not yet lost. It immediately won over France and Holland. In his return match, Kroos scored after the kick-off with a long pass By Florian Wirtz, who completed the opening goal after seven seconds of play. According to Kroos, the pattern was rehearsed.
– These goals change games, but also the status of the team. They make believe. “This is where it starts”, Urheilu’s expert Erkka V. Lehtola anneal.
There have been five wins and one draw out of six matches. Kroos has been in the starting line-up in all matches and played the full 90 minutes in all but one.
Urheilu’s experts have made the most of the champion’s farewell. The praise song already started in the opening game, where 101 of Kroos’ 102 passes went to his own. It is hoped that the man who obsessively washed his magic slippers with his own hands for years has a few more surprises up his sleeve.
Germany’s matches have been impossible to predict without talking about Kroos. Its games are also impossible to watch without admiring his playing. There is reason to do so, because from now on, the next defeat would mean Kroos’ final farewell.
Germany has young speedsters on its flanks, but Kroos’ role is decisive when the ball is taken towards the upper third of the field. The fact that Ancelotti and Pep Guardiola – two tacticians of all time – have trusted Kroos specifically in quarterbacking.
– When talking about a conductor, you should pay attention to how the hands and head of this icon of German football move, Lehtola urges.
– It’s impossible to say what all he is communicating, but there is clearly communication there. He constantly follows the positioning of others, and conversely, others follow how he leads the game with his gestures. Sometimes one hand goes up, sometimes two. The importance of this man in the new coming of Germany cannot be overemphasized.
Kroos is experienced, calm, sure of the ball and ready to solve. Among Germany’s rising stars, he is also the leading figure in the dressing room. There are four more victories in his dreams, the last of which would come at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on July 14.
Then the last month of the German legend’s playing career would be startlingly fairytale-like.
– In my eyes, we are far from the early favorites. But when I play in a tournament, I want to win, Kroos said in a televised interview with Sky Germany after the Champions League final.