Toni Kroos bows out on Saturday on the biggest stage of all. He will never play another club football match in his life. And to think his decade of dominance has come at Real Madrid, when it should have been at Bayern Munich.
Kroos joined Madrid from Bayern for just £20million in 2014. He was only 24 and he had already won a World Cup. So why did Bayern let him leave so young and so cheaply?
Uli Hoeness, club president at the time, is the answer. He thought Kroos lacked the backbone to be a really top player and never forgave him for not taking a penalty in the shootout against Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League final.
Hoeness, the rambunctious former German international who survived a plane crash during his playing days, and a prison spell for tax evasion after he’d retired, is the power-wielding Bayern executive who never seemed to take to Kroos.
There was a video doing the rounds on social media recently of him haranguing German reporters in 2007 after they had the temerity to suggest a spotty-faced 17-year-old Kroos might have been the man of the match after coming on as a substitute in a UEFA Cup game against Red Star Belgrade with his team losing 2-1 and assisting the equaliser and scoring the winner.
Toni Kroos (pictured) is set to play his final game for Real Madrid in the Champions League final
Bayern Munich executive Uli Hoeness (pictured) seemingly never forgave Kroos for not taking a penalty in the 2012 Champions League final
‘Excuse me!’ retorts a furious Hoeness. ‘Lucio was the best player today, not Toni Kroos. Let him stay down to earth.’
Hoeness’ suspicions that Kroos was too big for his boots were given an added twist in 2012 when Bayern lost that Champions League final in their home stadium on penalties and Hoeness blamed Kroos for a perceived lack of courage.
Kroos had missed a spot-kick in the semi-final shootout against Real Madrid, which Bayern won. But he did not want to take a penalty in the final and when Ivica Olic and Bastian Schweinsteiger both missed, Chelsea lifted the trophy.
‘I was sure we would have five takers without me,’ said Kroos afterwards. ‘And it would be better to have players who were not carrying the weight of having missed a kick in the semi-final.’
It seemed Hoeness did not forget or forgive. Kroos’ fate was sealed. He was never going to become a Bayern legend.
Bayern won the trophy the following season, beating Borussia Dortmund at Wembley, but injury had ruled Kroos out. In 2013, Pep Guardiola arrived — and so did new signing Mario Gotze.
He came in as a top earner and Kroos — who shared an agent with Gotze, so knew all about his wages — tested the club’s resolve to keep him by asking for similar treatment. He knew the answer before it arrived.
The midfielder (left) missed a spot-kick in the semi-final shootout against Real Madrid in 2012
Kroos (front) had tested the club’s resolve over his wages but would ultimately move to Real Madrid
You’re not a top player so you don’t get top money, was the response. And with Carlo Ancelotti now at Real Madrid and urging them to move for Kroos, the deal was done after he won the World Cup in Brazil. Ten years on, presumably Hoeness accepts that he got it wrong, and that Bayern’s monumental loss has been Real Madrid’s spectacular gain.
Kroos has always gone his own way. The player who still cleans his own boots spoke up when Spain Under 21s star Gabri Veiga moved to the Saudi Pro League after just 50 games in La Liga.
He called the move for such a young player ‘embarrassing’ and when his every touch was booed in Real Madrid’s subsequent Spanish Super Cup win in Riyadh, he simply tweeted: ‘That was fun today! Amazing crowd.’
It wasn’t the first time he’d excelled himself online. When a troll replied to a tweet about all the trophies that the Kroos-Luka Modric-Casemiro midfield had won, by saying ‘Kroos is so over-rated man…’ Kroos replied: ‘Yes, but don’t tell anybody.’
That midfield has since gone down as the best in Real Madrid’s history. On Saturday it will be just him in the starting XI, with Modric now a substitute and Casemiro long gone. The Brazilian once said of Kroos: ‘Real Madrid’s game always follows Toni’s tempo. If he wants us to play slower, we do. If he wants us to play faster, we do. We follow him.’
The Kroos metronome will tick at Wembley, in club colours, for the last time. His send-off last week, complete with his children Leon, Amelie and Fin all in tears with their No 8 shirts on pitchside, was as moving as it was deserved.
The 34-year-old (right) would form one of the greatest midfield trios alongside Casemiro (centre) and Luka Modric (left)
A troll had once criticised Real Madrid’s midfield trio of Kroos, Modric and Casemiro as ‘overrated’ on X (formerly Twitter). But Kroos issued a witty response
He’ll now leave the club having won a plethora of silverware and could add to his trophy haul at Wembley on Saturday
His send off last week for Real Madrid was a moving one and was also very well deserved
His team-mates lined up at the Bernabeu to give the midfielder a guard of honour
There was a guard of honour and a huge banner behind one goal — Kroos hated the spotlight of course.
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This is the player who, after winning the World Cup, preferred to sit in the corner taking his boots off rather than be in the photograph as his team-mates posed with then German chancellor Angela Merkel.
Perhaps it was that reticence to be in the spotlight that Hoeness mistook for a lack of character — that willingness not to follow the crowd that he mistook for arrogance.
‘Thanks for everything,’ Kroos said in Ancelotti’s ear when he was taken off in that last league game at the Bernabeu.
As Ancelotti said earlier this week: ‘For Kroos to sign off by winning the Champions League would be fantastic. But he already has his place in the history of football.’
The fans also showed their appreciation, unveiling a banner that read: ‘Thank you legend’
Carlo Ancelotti (left) stated earlier this week that Kroos (right) already has his place in football history
Age is just a number
Gian Piero Gasperini won the Europa League aged 66 last week and this week it was the turn of Jose Luis Mendilibar, 63, to win the Conference League with Olympiacos.
Gasperini only ever landed one really big job and it lasted just a few months — at Inter Milan in the 2011-12 season.
Mendilibar can’t even lay claim to that, although he has now won two European trophies in 12 months after winning the Europa League with Sevilla last season.
And Carlo Ancelotti could give ‘Grey Power’ another shot in the arm today if he wins his fifth Champions League at Wembley, aged 64.
Jose Luis Mendilibar (pictured) claimed his second European in 12 months after winning the Europa Conference League with Olympiacos this week
Dortmund’s Euro omissions
Dortmund’s brilliant end of season form has carried them into today’s final but has not been enough to get arguably their three best performers — Mats Hummels, Jadon Sancho and Ian Maatsen — to Euro 2024.
Ronald Koeman leaving Chelsea loanee Maatsen out of his Dutch squad feels especially harsh. An extra point to prove for the trio tonight.
Jadon Sancho (right) and Mats Hummels (left) are two Dortmund stars who were omitted from selection for this summer’s Euros
