After the disappointing European Championship, Toni Kroos leaves the national team. The new national coach Hansi Flick has to plan without the midfield strategist.
After 106 international matches, the former world champion Toni Kroos ended his career in the national soccer team. The 31-year-old midfielder of the Spanish record champions Real Madrid announced on Friday. “The decision is made, it is irrevocable,” said Kroos in his podcast “Einfach mal Luppen”. It is “always the case that logically certain conclusions are drawn after tournaments,” said Kroos. He had already thought about the European Championship and made the decision before the tournament.
“It’s not that I woke up after the tournament and said:” For God’s sake, I have to rethink everything, “” said Kroos and told his brother Felix that he had already thought about it in 2018, to end his career in the national team. This had “absolutely nothing to do with the departure”, he had “thought rationally”, justified Kroos.
Toni Kroos became world champion in 2014
As “very, very bitter” Kroos described the end of the national team in the round of 16 of the European Championship against England. Immediately afterwards, the future of the veteran was discussed. In the selection of the German Football Association, Kroos was always one of the most important contacts for the divorced national coach Joachim Löw, but was also often exposed to criticism. No field player was used more or longer under Löw than the man with the number eight. The new national coach will have to do without the strategist in the future, who has already been referred to as an “interior decorator” because of his game intelligence.
In 2014, Kroos, who was born in Greifwald, won the world championship with the DFB team in Brazil, and was four times Champions League winner with FC Bayern (2013) and Real Madrid (2016 to 2018). He was club world champion, German and Spanish champion, and cup winner.
This is “a decision for the family and for me, because it is good for me that I am more with the family,” said Kroos. He was “very happy to be a national player”, “but that was always paired with the great vice of not being with the family”. He also wants to focus on his club Real Madrid in the future. On Twitter, Kroos again published a suicide note. “It was an honor”, he concluded and wished the new coach Flick “a lot of luck and success”.
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