From the European Championship round of 16 onwards, every game could be the last in Toni Kroos’ career. Since his return to the national team, the 34-year-old has played a central role in building up play – from the very back.
For the match against Hungary, national coach Julian Nagelsmann had considered a few tactical changes compared to the 5-1 opening victory against Scotland.
Ilkay Gündogan’s basic position was a little deeper and Kai Havertz drifted more often to the right side behind Márton Dárdai. There were also small adjustments further back, as Toni Kroos increasingly operated from the middle in the first phase of the build-up.
In the first European Championship match, the 34-year-old playmaker initially appeared on the left wing next to Jonathan Tah and Antonio Rüdiger to form the three-man line that is standard for the DFB team.
For many years, Kroos primarily drove his team’s game from the left back. This was normal when he was playing for Real Madrid and after his return to the DFB selection, Nagelsmann did not change Kroos’ habits, although in the friendly against France in March, Kroos and Robert Andrich swapped positions from time to time.
Kroos’ tipping changes Germany’s game
During the current European Championship, however, Andrich can always be found in the six position in front of Kroos, Tah and Rüdiger. The exact reason for Kroos dropping between the two central defenders – instead of dropping out to the left – can of course only be speculated upon.
In any case, this meant that Tah had to distribute the ball to the left and right less often when opening the game. The Leverkusen defender has recently shown a few problems with the weighting of his passes, i.e. the dosage of pressure and length. Since Tah was more often positioned on the left against Hungary, he was able to dribble forward on the right, similar to Rüdiger.
In this way, Germany was able to build up the game when Kroos was positioned centrally
Hungary with occasional pressing successes
However, the second group match also showed that Germany could continue to have difficulties against a three-man press. Roland Sallai, Dominik Szoboszlai and Barnabás Varga occasionally ran high and man-oriented and were able to disrupt Germany’s progress.
In these scenes, Joshua Kimmich or Ilkay Gündogan usually provided relief when one of the two dropped back over the half spaces. Andrich still does not play a significant role in the build-up because, as a lone number six, he is usually covered by the opponent and does not have enough confidence to turn around under pressure after receiving the ball in a tight space.
Kroos remembers Franz Beckenbauer
During the game against Hungary, Kroos regularly varied his position and, as usual, appeared on the left wing. The more space the German attacker has, the more easily he can turn towards the field and play one of his well-known diagonal balls with his strong right foot.
In a certain way, Kroos is reminiscent of other deep-lying playmakers in the national team’s history – be it Franz Beckenbauer in his role as a central defender in 1974 or Matthias Sammer as a central part of the German build-up line in 1996.
If Kroos has his way, he would also like to end his career with the trophy that was last won by a DFB selection in 1996.