After a 17-year career, one of the greatest midfielders of all time has ended his club football career on a high note - with another Champions League title to his name.
On May 21, Toni Kroos announced his upcoming retirement at the age of 34 via a post on Instagram. The German midfielder’s last matches would be for his national team at Euro 2024, making his appearance in the Champions League final at Wembley for Real Madrid against Borussia Dortmund his club football swansong. Not surprisingly, this became the biggest underlying storyline heading into the match.
Real ended up clinching their sixth Champions League title in the last 11 seasons and a record-extending 15th overall. Although Dortmund had multiple viable goalscoring chances in the first half, Die Schwarzgelbe weren’t able to take advantage of any of them - and as such, they were made to pay after the break. Dani Carvajal put Real a goal ahead in the 74th minute via a header that fittingly, was delivered by Kroos. Nine minutes later, Vinícius Júnior put the result beyond all doubt after finishing off a chance set up by Jude Bellingham, who’d received the ball in a dangerous position following an error by Dortmund full-back Ian Maatsen.
There can be no question that Kroos has done it all. Seven league titles, four domestic cups, a World Cup title with Germany in 2014, and now - by far the most remarkable statistic of the lot - six Champions League titles. Kroos has been an integral part of the greatest dynasty that football has ever seen.
In stark contrast to the exit of Marco Reus, another German veteran who was ending his own legendary 12-year stint at Dortmund, Kroos went out in a blaze of glory. This was a performance in which the man from Greifswald turned back the clock, resembling the player he was at his absolute peak. Kroos was involved in almost all of Los Merengues’ serious attacking thrusts, making countless key passes and setting up multiple goalscoring opportunities - including the one which ended up being Real’s first goal.
Going back to that day almost a decade ago when Kroos first signed for Real, his stock at the time was already high following the major role he played in Germany’s 2014 World Cup triumph. Kroos was signed from Bayern Munich for the now laughably low fee of €25 million. As such, very few at the time could’ve predicted that Kroos would someday go on to become a club icon and a bona fide legend of the Santiago Bernabéu.
By the end of Kroos’ fourth season in Madrid, he’d been one of the core pieces of a historic Champions League three-peat, been named to the FIFPro World XI and UEFA Team of the Year twice as a Real player, and led La Liga in assists in 2016-17. While already an extremely impressive achievement list, Kroos wasn’t even close to done.
Kroos was a major reason why Real didn’t immediately suffer a severe drop-off following the 2018 off-season departure of Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus. Alongside Luka Modrić and Casemiro, Kroos would establish himself as one-third of the greatest midfield trios ever.
After a lean spell which included back-to-back round of 16 Champions League exits as well as a tame elimination at the hands of England at Euro 2020, some thought Kroos would be in terminal decline from that point on. Instead, Kroos had a bounce-back season in 2021-22, playing an important role in Real’s La Liga and Champions League double before capping it off with another of the same this season.
Taking his entire career into consideration, one can go a step further: Kroos retires as the greatest midfielder to ever come out of Germany. Even compared to icons like Günter Netzer, Wolfgang Overath, Lothar Matthäus, and Mesut Özil, Kroos has surpassed all of them. None of them have the combination of peak level of play, statistical achievements, and individual and team accolades that Kroos has - including (but not by much) Matthäus who was the consensus pick for “greatest ever German midfielder” before Kroos.
With Germany’s national team looking stronger than it has been in years, there’s an opportunity for Toni Kroos to sign off his international career on a high note - if not with a Euro 2024 victory, then at least with a deep run. It would be a fitting way to sign off.
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