Toni Kroos: Real Madrid midfielder to retire after this summer’s European Championship in Germany
Real Madrid and Germany midfielder Toni Kroos has announced he will retire from professional football following the conclusion of this summer’s European Championship.
The 34-year-old’s last game for Real Madrid will be the Champions League final against Borussia Dortmund on June 1 at Wembley, where the German has the chance to win his fifth European Cup with the club.
On Monday, Kroos informed Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti of his intention to call time on his career. A source inside the dressing room said “we’re broken”.
In a statement confirming his retirement on Instagram, Kroos said: “Real Madrid is and will be my last club”.
He continued: “After 10 years, at the end of the season this chapter comes to an end. I will never forget that successful time!
“I would particularly like to thank everyone that welcomed me with an open heart and trusted me.
“But especially I would like to thank you, dear Madridistas, for your affection and your love from the first day until the last one.
“At the same time this decision means that my career as an active footballer will end this summer after the European Championship.”
Kroos concluded: “I am happy and proud, that in my mind I found the right timing for my decision and that I could choose it by my own.
“My ambition was always to finish my career at the peak of my performance level. From now on there is only one leading thought: a por la 15!!! HALA MADRID Y NADA MAS!”
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The midfielder, who joined Madrid from Bayern Munich in 2014, has won four La Liga titles during his decade-long stay in the Spanish capital.
A club statement released on Tuesday morning thanked the German for his integral contribution to one of the most successful period in the club’s 122-yearn history.
The statement said: “Real Madrid would like to express its gratitude and affection to Toni Kroos, a player who will go down in Real Madrid history as one of our club and international football’s greatest legends.
“Kroos will remain forever in the hearts of every Madridista thanks to his mastery of the game and the fact he has given his all for our jersey, a steady example of the values of Real Madrid.”
Club president Florentino Pérez added: “Toni Kroos is one of the great players in Real Madrid history and this club will always be his home.”
Kroos will play in this summer’s European Championship after deciding to return to the national team at the end of February. The midfielder has 108 appearances for Germany, with whom he won the 2014 World Cup.
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The greatest German player of his generation?
Analysis by Sebastian Stafford-Bloor
Is Toni Kroos the greatest German player of the current generation?
He is certainly in the conversation. He was fundamental to the World Cup win in 2014 and woven into the fabric of the four Real Madrid teams to have won the Champions League in the last decade.
In a week and a half, he has a good chance of collecting his fifth winners’ medal. An extraordinary record for an extraordinary player – perhaps one of the smoothest passers of the modern era, certainly among its most watchable.
In a sense, though, Kroos is not typically German. His style of play, perhaps, is not associated with the national archetype, even if that is based an outdated cliché.
Kroos was a crucial member of Germany’s World Cup-winning side in 2014 (Photo by Lars Baron – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
The circumstances under which he left Bayern Munich in 2014 also makes him an outlier. From a very early age, Kroos knew his value – and in a way that to some, particularly in the more conservative parts of the country, likely saw as brash.
There is a famous story about Uli Hoeness chastising Kroos is the tunnel after a game in February. Kroos’ agent, Volker Struth, was renegotiating his contract and Hoeness was – to put it mildly – affronted by the wage demands.
“Put your agent right, you’ll never get €10m”, Hoeness is reported to have said.“I don’t need to,” Kroos replied. “We agree about that.”
Some of that acrimony lasted. Hoeness was actually quite critical of the decision to recall Kroos to the national team in December 2023 – “a signal from the Titanic” he described it as – but there is no question that Kroos has made Nagelsmann’s Germany better.
Amazingly, he looks almost unchanged from the player who left Bayern all those years ago. And perhaps that describes Toni Kroos most vividly: a world class footballer, but also a timeless one.
(Photo by VI Images via Getty Images)
