National team
Main role at the start: “Brilliant” Kroos gets started
Returns to the national team as a beacon of hope: Toni Kroos. photo
© Arne Dedert/dpa
First training, first press conference: The national team stage belongs to a returnee. But what does Toni Kroos’ comeback mean in terms of sport, hierarchy and atmosphere?
And this Tuesday, the 34-year-old Real Madrid midfielder will be the focus of attention in two ways at the DFB campus in Frankfurt: Firstly, at the first training session for the European Championship friendly against France in Lyon on Saturday. And immediately afterwards at the press conference.
Kroos returns as a beacon of hope
Then the man speaks who national coach Julian Nagelsmann was able to reactivate for the home European Championship in the summer almost three years after his 106th international match. Kroos comes back as a beacon of hope, even if he doesn’t see himself as a “savior”: “You shouldn’t think that this trick will make us favorites. That’s nonsense.”
Kroos has a prominent place in Nagelsmann’s European Championship dream team. “He can be a brilliant link between defense and offense. He is playing an extremely stable season at Real Madrid, which perhaps no one would have signed so urgently.” The national coach is endlessly grateful to Kroos for the DFB comeback. “He could have relaxed by the sea in the summer.” Now Kroos wants to play another European Championship tournament.
What does the Kroos comeback mean?
Sporty: Kroos is still an outstanding player. Above all, he is someone who can process the ball in midfield even when under pressure with a resting heart rate. “We will have moments of pressure in the summer where players are played in front of their own goal. You have to be stable in your head and of course have the technique to not get nervous,” noted Nagelsmann.
He wants to put a worker like Robert Andrich from Leverkusen or Pascal Groß from Brighton alongside strategist Kroos. Extra space is created for Kroos: Captain Ilkay Gündogan moves forward to the ten, Joshua Kimmich has to move to the right back.
Hierarchical: Kroos is of course coming back as a leading figure. He is the 2014 World Cup winner. He has won the Champions League five times. His words have weight – and he can speak plainly.
Atmospheric: Kroos was not always seen as an integrative force in the DFB team. The same advisor connects him with Nagelsmann. Will he take the many inexperienced colleagues in the heavily restructured squad by the hand? He played his last international match on June 29, 2021 in a 2-0 defeat in the European Championship round of 16 against England. It sealed the next early German tournament exit after the even more disastrous 2018 World Cup. Kroos also played a part both times. Now he wants to give his DFB story a happy ending.