Official: Toni Kroos to Real Madrid

Pedram wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Good riddance.

What's your view on him as a player, im curious. i kinda agree with you on the fact that Kroos retirement will be a net positive for Madrid.

I see a lot of praise for him in media but it might be due to recency bias, people tend to only remember his amazing games and forget when he had absolute stinkers. me personally i think his influence on the pitch is overstated to a high degree, yes he has insane passing range and clearly talented in that aspect but other than that he's a very limited player, in recent years he has gotten super slow and static, not only it hurts our dynamism in the center of the pitch, it also forces all other players to cover more ground to make up for his lack of physicality.

Plus Kroos leaving means Jude can finally play in his natural position, i continue to believe playing him in CAM is a waste of his talent, he's a good goalscorer but that's it, he's definitely no Ozil or Kaka.

He was very good in his prime and a legend.  No question there.  I take exception to the last 3 years.

Later in his career, you had to set up your team to play at his pace and compensate for his lack of mobility and defense.  What did that mean?  Ferland Mendy was the only fullback that could play because an attacking fullback on that side couldn't exist.  Modric, who was and is miles better than Kroos IMO, could not play with Kroos and Kroos was chosen.  I get it... Valverde can only play on the right.  So Modric was sacrificed.  Still a shame IMO.  

He did the right thing to retire because no other team could surround him with Mendy, Tchouameni, Bellingham and Vini to make his current very limited skillset look great.  He would get completely exposed.  Imagine Kroos under pressure with the ball and having to find an option.... So better to leave when people remember you for what you're very good at...  namely long passes, set pieces and the occasional long shot.

Now imagine how dynamic and FAST the midfield will be with Tchouameni, Camavinga, Valverde and Jude.  Incredible 4 player rotation.  RM can finally get an attacking left fullback too now.  The pace of play can (and should) increase dramatically.

Kroos was always limited in terms of pace and so the sense of having to compensate for his lack of mobility was there from the beginning, this is one of the things that has made him seem "timeless", his game doesn't revolve around pace and so he's kept a pretty steady performance level relative to himself. This season it has actually been pretty wide spread, open public discourse whether 23/24 has been his greatest season ever. The lack of physicality and subsequent criticism of that have both led to often somewhat crude and/or unbalanced analyses of what Kroos brings to the table imo. Used to be the same case with Xabi Alonso, and he was superior still to Kroos in terms of pace and defending but still seemed inadequate to balance out the structural issues Madrid had in his time.

This sense of having to compensate for different things has probably always been prevalent at Madrid, and in a way it's the norm in most football teams in one way or another. You have to work with what you have and create a system around that. The way the world works doesn't always allow for the best and most balanced team building even if that's what a savvy football department is aiming for. Often times that's not even what is really aimed for. The last 15 years at Madrid have been an interesting case study, years where you could argue that even though we probably gathered the "greatest" accumulation of talent of its generation, it wasn't the least imperfect. Marcelo, Ronaldo, and Bale brought similar problems in relation to the big scheme of things and Coentrao, left midfielder Di Maria, the late 2014 4222 midfield quartet (of which 23/24 Madrid is very reminiscent of), Casemiro, the inevitable greater centralization of Ronaldo, Mendy, and Valverde have been some of the measures taken to balance things out. Shame that prime Coentrao didn't last longer than he did, perhaps my favorite Madrid left back since I've watched. Of all the imperfect gods that Madrid has enjoyed, Kroos may be the one that I was least bothered by in a way, partly because he would always work in a truly balanced team anyways imo, particularly in the era of high pressing, possession football, whole-team work ethic, and more advanced tactical machinations, but he has indeed been limiting in important structural ways. But football is also more complicated than just that.

Kroos has brought a formidable and now legendary synthesis of mentality, character, consistency, vision, press resistance, ball control, and passing range that has been pivotal in Madrid's ability to escape pressure, build from the back, switch play, bring tempo control, reorientate itself and the opposite team, penetrate forward from the back, retain possession, successfully counter, orientate pressing, etc. It is not quite serious to vaguely characterize and reduct the good things that Kroos brings to the table to simply "long passes, set pieces and the occasional long shot."

None of the "new" 4 midfield wonders has quite that astonishing accumulation of powers that Kroos had, but they are still formidable and potentially legendary in their own way, lets see what they come up with. As I've said previously  in other threads, this current Madrid squad might potentially be one of the least imperfect and most tantalizingly complete in the club's history when it comes to the amalgamation and balance of technical, physical, and mental profiles.

sportsczy wrote:Good riddance.

You got me to bite. Here's your (you), bozo.

I will miss the certainty that is Toni Kroos. I just hope the ones who remain can fill the void he will leave behind. Let's hope Bellingham can do just that.

Actually Xabi Alonso is the perfect comparison to Kroos. Both were very good midfielders... but by no means amongst the great.

Zidane, Xavi, Iniesta, Vieira, Pirlo, etc were great. They were either complete or had superpowers that were unique (and in some even rarer cases, both). Kroos is literally 2 steps below that level. Modric is up there IMO.

Of the true legends, Pirlo is likely the closest. But that's just because of a lack of pace and defensive deficiencies. But, Pirlo was supremely comfortable with the ball at his feet and under pressure. His passing game was vertical... not safe or horizontal. He had an unpredictability to his game. He was creative.

Just not the same level.

If you want to compare him to an Italian midfielder... Marchisio.

Would you even consider Kroos as good as Schweinsteigger?

Yesterday, I was thinking about how Kroos compares to other, great midfielders that I've watched. I do appreciate Kroos' composure and passing range, but even someone like, Clarence Seedorf who no one ever seems to mention was superior to Kroos in multiple areas of his game. In the grand scheme of things, he may not compare favorably against a lot of past greats, but he's been a very solid player for us during a time where exceptional midfielders are few and far between.

Sports is 100% spot on in comparison to other midfielders and above.

Madrid so heavily leaned around his intense limits it was a joke. Footballing legend but nowhere near the Xavi, Pirlo, Zidane's of the era.

i'd say Kroos' best abilities were higher than Schweinsteiger's, but Schweiny was more well-rounded... depends on what your team needs

We started the season with all the young midfielders but we quickly needed Kroos/Modric in there as we lacked composure and/or conductor.

I am hoping Arda can develop into Modric' role so that can start playing Arda-Cama-Valverde in midfield. None of the other midfielders have Modric/Kroos/Arda creativity.

yea the new players coming up today throughout all positions feel nothing like 2000s or 2010s players, game has really evolved

Vibe wrote:I just need football to evolve again to where a 10 is the main guy.

So we can have Totti, Kaka, Del Piero, Zidane again

It's sort of happening in France and England.  Griezmann is playing 10/CM for France and he's the one that really makes the team work... love Mbappe but the most important player IMO is Griezmann.  Even if Mbappe isn't there, you can have an attack of Barcola/Giroud/Dembele with Griezmann and make it work for a while.  Without Griezmann, France's midfield is very very very diminished.  He wasn't there for the first time since 2017 this past March and it was a disaster in the middle.

Same with England.  Bellingham is really the only threat from the midfield.  The others are nice of course... but what happens to England's attack if there is no link and creativity.

I don't think the importance is less.  The issue is that every kid dreams to be either Messi or Ronaldo...  or Mbappe and Haaland now.  Need a mediatic model in midfield to get the best kids to want to play the position.

I have some concerns with the talent coming up in France generally to replace players in 3-4 years time as a side note. Not that great.

El Gunner wrote:i'd say Kroos' best abilities were higher than Schweinsteiger's, but Schweiny was more well-rounded... depends on what your team needs

Very accurate even if very different midfielders.

Arquitecto wrote:Sports is 100% spot on in comparison to other midfielders and above.

Madrid so heavily leaned around his intense limits it was a joke. Footballing legend but nowhere near the Xavi, Pirlo, Zidane's of the era.

I disagree. Kroos is one or two notches above Alonso. And peeps still overrating Xavi. Some things never change. But then again I've always rated mids differently from y'all. Xavi can be considered as you rate him IF we're strictly speaking the tiki taka but outside of it? I wouldn't be too sure about that.

Guys like Zidane, Pirlo, Iniesta shine regardless of football philosophy. Not "the grass was too long" Xavi. And don't get me started on Alonso. Dunno who's more overrated Xavi or Xabi. I guess I just don't like the Xav/biers of this world. Well to both their credit, they're both doing well as managers these days.

This is the best kroos has played probably ever in my opinion. Also everyone needs structure to florish their best potential, it's not only a kroos thing

@Turok_TTZ i would be mad too if Xavi passed circles around my team for years

Clutch wrote:This is the best kroos has played probably ever in my opinion. Also everyone needs structure to florish their best potential, it's not only a kroos thing

This is very true.

Pirlo was able to thrive in any system whereas Xavi catered to him was his best if not the only system he shone in.

Pirlo of course was more complete for he was two footed, shot miles better and had a ridiculous vision for a pass but wasn't as involved in the game as Xavi for people also forget having a midfield built around you is a lot more stress than anything and is mentally extremely taxing for 90 minutes.

@Turok I didn't compare Kroos with Xabi for if I had to rate both I rate them relatively equally for Xabi found success in two different teams.

Dont wanna get into the debates but for me Xavi when at his best definitely DOMINATED any midfield he came across. Sure Iniesta helped him as they worked in tandem, but Xavi did that with both Barca n Spain. Still remember clearly he domianted Pirlo in a game at least? He just completely ran every game he played in back in those prime few yrs, untouchable.

All of them had to have a work horse more or less alongside them of cos... Kroos though I remember was more of a 10 at Bayern although not sure cos I didnt follow them much, n then unwanted n moved to Real cos Bayern were too stacked, it was only at Real he really improved n later on became the deep play maker.

Xabi were always be just the backup to Xavi