Real Madrid center midfielder Toni Kroos can sometimes fly under the radar, but he is crucial to Los Blancos’ success.
Toni Kroos recently turned heads with his individual brilliance in the UEFA Nations League match against Spain. The Real Madrid midfield maestro bossed the game yet again, completing 93.4 percent of his passes with three key passes, per WhoScored.com. Often unfairly criticized for his defense, Kroos added two tackles and an interception in an all-action display for Germany.
The No. 8 performance’s for the national team are a reminder of what he’s done for Real Madrid week after week. In 2019-2020, Kroos didn’t hoard headlines, but he was quietly one of the best midfielders in the world again, rebounding from an off 2018-2019 season under difficult circumstances for him and his teammates.
With Zinedine Zidane providing competent leadership for Los Blancos, Kroos found his groove. He started the season in a more attacking role, pressing and taking a high degree of shots. Kroos was playing his best football in a long time in the Fall, finishing the Champions League group stages with the most key passes per game of any player.
In La Liga, the Real Madrid midfielder completed 93.5 percent of his passes with four assists and 1.7 key passes per game on nearly 67 passes per match. Basically, Kroos was automatic, he was incisive, and he kept Los Blancos ticking in every way imaginable.
Toni Kroos is a leader for Real Madrid in midfield
Not enough is said about Kroos’ quiet leadership, footballing intelligence, and ability to pick out passes from all regions of the field with pinpoint accuracy. The notion that he is a “sideways merchant” is a myth concocted by fans who have not actually watched him play, but spread false narratives on unfounded assumptions. They gain traction on social media, simply because there are more people (fans of other teams) that benefit from negative narratives about a rival player spreading like wildfire.
Kroos is not a playmaker. He is not an elite scoring midfielder. And he’s not a rugged defender. But he is an adept defender, scorer, and playmaker who is elite in other ways, mostly as a passer and organizer of his teammates. When Kroos is on the pitch, everyone is in place. He is a leader for the forwards and the other midfielders.
And that leadership has benefited the likes of Ferland Mendy and Vinicius Junior on the left, as well as Fede Valverde in the midfield. Kroos usually posts up on the left side of a three-man midfield. And this coming season, he can add more veteran leadership to help the incoming Martin Odegaard, who could be a game-changer for Real Madrid.
Odegaard can be the spark for Real, but Kroos, keeping with the analogy of a team as a machine, is the engine. His passing, calmness, class on set pieces, and eye for the spectacular goal make him irreplaceable. As he gets older, he cannot start every single game. But whenever Real Madrid have an important match, the German star must be in there.